We Will Celebrate
A night on the Boiling Isles was never one where you were certain to wake up again. With hungry demons roaming the forests and flesh-eating bugs looking for any hole in your walls, it was needless to say that you didn’t want to be out with the moon. But tonight the air was cool and thin, and the only sign of bugs was the sound of their songs. The moon wasn’t a thin smirk awaiting the leaking of young blood, but instead a pie of silver cream with an inky crust.
Amity rested her head on Luz’s shoulder. “You haven’t touched your spider cake, are you alright?” Luz questioned through a mouthful of creepy crawleys.
“Yeah, I’m fine, I’ve just missed you, that’s all. I’ve been off exploring the Isles for a few months now, and the weekly Penstagram calls just weren't doing it for me.”
“Aw,” Luz rested her head on top of Amity’s, “I promise you that once I’m done with college we will travel the world together.”
“You mean we’re gonna dress up and travel together?” Amity snickered.
Luz couldn’t help but laugh at the reference to the censorship of Azura and Hecate in certain dubs, “I guess we are!” She went to grab another bite of cake, but stabbed into nothing. Even with a mouth still abundant with spider legs, she craved more. “Soooo… you gonna eat your cake? Sorry, I’m just a big fan of the long-leg flavor.”
Amity slid the plate over to Luz, “Eat away, honey. I have dinner with Dad, Em and Ed later anyways.”
“Thank you!” Luz tried to give Amity a kiss on the cheek, but instead of warm skin she was met with the curling touch of a frequently used glove.
“Luz, I love you, but you are not kissing me with a face covered in spider guts,” she lowered her hand to look Luz in the eyes. The expression she wore was not amused but at the same time light-hearted, indicating that there were no bad intentions at blocking her affection.
“Amity,” Luz playfully whined. They messed around for a bit, Luz still trying to get a kiss from her girlfriend. “Come on! I see you covered in abomination goo all the time, but I don’t refuse you a kiss!”
“Yeah, but abominations are much cleaner than spider guts!” Amity held away Luz’s head like she was a toddler. She made kissy sounds as she continued to fight against her hand.
Clink! A glass bottle sat on the table, a golden hook holding it by its lip. “Alright you two, enough of that lovey-dovey stuff. Luz, wash your face off and come with me. King and I have something we want to show you.”
Lilith materialized next to Eda, “Oh, can I come too! The artistry of it is something I just can’t miss, especially when it’s doused in glorious moonlight!”
“Alright, fine. Luz will need a nerd like you to show her around anyways.”
“Okay!” Luz jumped up from her seat. With the first napkin she could find, she wiped away spider legs from her face. She pressed a kiss to Amity’s forehead, “That better?”
“Much better. Now go, I don’t want to keep you from Eda and King.” Luz turned to her family. Eda stomped Owlbert, and beams of light shot from eyes. Even the impenetrable walls of darkness couldn't keep up their defenses against the mighty light of Owlbert.
“Luz, you’re going to love the gift me and Eda got you! We’ve been preparing it all year, and-”
“Lily, you’re gonna spoil the surprise if you tell her all about it on the way there!” Eda cut through a cloud of leaves with her hook.
“Sorry! It’s just, you can imagine how exciting something like this would be!” Eda shot Lilith ‘the look’ before she could continue any further with her ranting.
The trip was slow and tedious. Spring in the Boiling Isles meant venturing through some kind of over-grown forest if you planned on getting anywhere on foot. Eda’s hook was sharp, but it wasn’t very good at cutting through all the thick floral in their path. Luz looked up to the head of the beastly trees. Amongst the thick webs of bark and leaf, thousands of night-birds sat like an eerie black fog. Their beady eyes watched her and her family as they continued to walk. The watchers didn’t dare to blink or squawk, or show any sign of life, really.
Then a song, warmer than sunlight and sweeter than sugar, filled the hollow air. The sound dripped down from the tree and encased the owl-family like bugs. It started as one, solemn tune, easily swept away by any gust of wind. It didn't take long before it got bolder with another bird joining, and another, and another, until it sounded like a graceful choir singing sleepy songs from their throats.
“Night wailers! King, scare em off, will ya?” Eda held her hand to the ear closest to the source. Luz snatched King up by his armpits and pointed him at the tree painted in black like he was a weapon.
“Weh!” King may have used as little power as he could’ve, but Luz was still sent to the ground from the shout. The sound scattered the birds in every direction. They looked like a shadowy beast being sliced into a thousand pieces.
“Get up, kid, before the flesh-eatin bugs get the taste for eighteen-year-old human girl.” Eda, with her hook, pulled the girl by her collar and stood her up-right. “I’ve never seen a bunk-bed of night birds that large. Think we’re being followed, Lily?”
“It’s possible,” Lilith raised her spectacles to get a better look at the sky above with its one solemn bird, “But it is a full moon, it wouldn’t be mad to say that they just chose this clearing in the trees to prey. Plus, do you know any Beastkeeper who can control that many birds? Not even Eberwolf can do that! Of course, they specialize in mammals, not avians.”
“Alright, alright, I understand. If I wanted a lecture on the power-pyramid of all the Beastkeepers in the Isles I would’ve asked before we entered a wooded maze. Now quit being a nerd and help me cut this branch.”
“Hold on,” Stringbean slithered out from under Luz’s sleeve, “Let me help. I have a snake-shifter, after all.” The tip of her tail shifted into a dagger, and she began to slice away at the tree limbs ahead of them.
“Thanks, little dude,” Stringbean purred when Eda scratched her behind the ear. She curled around the woman’s arm and meowed sweetly at her.
“Aw, she likes you!” Luz cooed.
“Well of course she does! I’m your mother, why wouldn't your palisman like me?”
“I know, but remember, last year she refused to lay with you, now I have to search through your nest in the morning to find her.”
“Yeah, you really gotta teach her to not do that. I don’t mind it, but Raine’s deathly afraid of snakes.”
“Well, you won't have to worry about it for much longer. This bad girl’s going off to college!”
“You are,” Eda stabbed a hungry-looking beetle, “But don’t think it’ll be easy just because I’m the headmaster. Mama Eda doesn’t hold back on the work she gives, especially not on a smart kid like you. I know you can do it, but can you handle it?”
“Trust me, Eda, I can handle it. If I didn’t think I could, then I wouldn't have chosen to major in every subject.”
“There’s a big difference between thinking you can do something and actually being able to do it.”
Lilith snorted, “You’re starting to sound like an actual teacher, not just some crazed old hag teaching a band of strays!” Her laughing was soon interrupted by a mouthful of good scarlet-pine brush.
Above the sound of Lily spitting out leaves and yelling curses at Eda, she cackled, “That’s what you get for messing with The Owl Lady, the wildest witch on the Boiling Isles!”
“Everyone on the Isles is a wild witch now, you’re not special!” Lilith said between fits of exerting leaves and pine from her mouth.
“Yeah, but I was one of the first! So that makes me better than you and the other witches who were dumb enough to be stepped on by a genocidal dictator.”
“Edalyn!” Lilith scowled, “Are you really going to make fun of people for being indoctrinated!?”
“I smell a fight coming on,” Luz hauled King up into her arms. The two sisters’ shouting already had him quivering like a squirrel caught in a blizzard. “You know the way there, don’t you?” He nodded; his little head rested against her chest. The two walked ahead of the bickering women, off into the thick woods. Cotton-candy moonlight peeked at them from behind thick canopies and twisting branches.
“Luz, can you tell me a story?”
“Of course,” she hummed to herself, thinking of what fantastical tale should be used to soothe his anxiety, “Oh, I’ve got a perfect thing for you.”
“Far beyond the horizon, somewhere where creatures more twisted than any young witch’s imagination breathe the same air as you and I, there is a beast. Rumors tell of the abomination, how it hollered at sleeping townsfolk from it’s place in the mountains. It snatched little girls and boys right from their mommas arms!” King looked at her with an intreged glint in his eyes.
“One day, the towns folk had enough with the monster! How could they just stand by and watch as women were made to mourn their children and the children left had to fear for their lives. So one day, all the strong men and women gathered at the foot of the mountain. To the beast they hollered, ‘Why, sire! Why hathe you stolen our children and forsaken our wives to dismal! Our hearts are starved and our homes are baren because of you, ye nasty devil!’ They expected the beast to emerge from the mountains and behead them like toys, but do you know what it did instead?”
“No, what’d it do?”
“The beast sobbed and sobbed. For weeks on end the people listened to the creaking voice of the saddened monster. When it finally stopped, a crystal-clear river began to flow through the town. At the bed of the river gorgeous flowers blossomed. Their petals were brighter than the rosy cheeks of girls and bolder than any mighty warrior. One faithful day, on Scruitember thirty-first, from the center of the flower, children emerged. But they weren’t just any children, they were the lost children! Families embraced each other and wept.”
“Although they were overjoyed at the return of their children, the townsfolk were left confused as well. Why had the monster given them back their children? So the people approached the beast once more, but this time freshly baked goods replaced their weapons. The people kneeled to the giant and asked, ‘Oh mighty one, why hath you returned us our children?’ And for the first time since the mountains themselves had formed, the beast spoke. ‘My child, young and naive, I took your children because you were in need. In need of a reason to see your wrong. When you approached me, ready to kill, you showed great determination and will. You showed love and fear and sorrow for your kin. What had you done before? You silenced, burned, and buried them with a wicked grin. But when the thief was someone who was not your own, you found a reason to cry, and real tears you sobbed. So no longer look upon each other with a crooked brow and a nasty frown, gaze at your kin and your friends with a love that not even a beast such as I could break or bend.”
“From that day forward, no one killed or hurt one another. People still fought, but they never left their relationships contorted beyond repair. Because even when separated, we are never apart. The only thing that divides us is blind hate.”
King’s chest carefully rose and fell. His head was leaned up towards the sky and his whole body was limp. Even a little god needed his bed-time stories. She kissed his forehead and sat him on a nearby rock. It wouldn’t be smart to go on without Eda and Lilith now that King was out.
With nothing but a stick and a whole lot of boredom, Luz took to messing around with the new glyph language by drawing in the dirt. A circle, a smaller circle in the middle, a bigger circle above it, and a line passing behind them, then two inward-facing v’s, a line near the foot connecting them, and to top it all off, titan-like horns at the top. It almost looked like a bat mid-flight. She tapped the circle. The lines slowly bubbled upwards, before sitting in the air was a shining sphere of light. On the skin of the bulb was the glyph she’d used to summon it. King’s dad’s glyphs certainly didn’t do that!
The light was warm in contrast to the bitter cold still left over from winter. Luz cupped the light in her hands and brought it to a shivering King. It bobbled around, before slowly gravitating towards the sleeping Titan. In the crook of his arm it stuck, rubbing against his face. He murmured and groaned for a moment, but he quickly slouched back to a peaceful sleep.
“Luz! King!” The call of an middle-aged woman could be heard not too far away. Luz headed towards the call.
Standing at the edge of the clearing she and King had stopped at, Luz responded, “We’re over here!” From deep in the abyss of shadows and storms of leaves, a light peeked out. With every second it shone brighter and brighter, until it glared at Luz like the sun.
“Luz! Don’t run off like that again, you hear?” The light dispersed, and the woman with a gray maine tugged on Luz’s ear.
“You and Lilith were arguing and it was scaring King! If you don’t want us to be separated then don’t force me to choose between safety and my little brother!”
Eda sighed, “Listen, kid, I’m sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at my sister for being a fool in front of you, even if she did deserve it..”
“Thank you,” Luz snatched Eda up in a hug, “Now, let’s go and see this big surprise that you’ve been hyping up.”
“Alright,” Eda gently picked King up off the rock. She carried him with her good arm and held Owlbert with her hook “The forest will thin out soon. So just follow me, we’ll be there in no time.”
“Where’s Lilith at?” The family of four minus one walked side-by-side through the woods.
“Oh you know how she gets after a fight. She probably ran home to her mommy to whine about how Edalyn was mean to her again,” Eda mocked her sister with a demeaning voice.
“Eda, you’re too mean to Lilith. I think you should apologize to her when we get back.”
“Ughh, do I have to?” Luz glared at her, “Fine, I’ll do it, but only because I feel like being nice tonight. Birthday parties always get me in a good mood.”
Eventually the forest had thinned out enough so that Eda didn’t have to cut through a tree every few seconds. Owlbert perched on Eda’s shoulder, sound asleep. By the time they reached the foot of a hill, the only sign of any child-eating forest was the knee-length grass and flowers with muscular stems.
“It’s just over the hill. Go get it, girl,” Eda stood with her hook to her hip.
Lantern-bugs danced above the grass. They dazzled like they were gifts from the deep depths of space; a solemn star fished from its loneliness and brought to live a life with thousands of other organic-turned celestial beings. Luz moved through their galaxies with ease. The little bugs lit the land, allowing her to see the ground in front of her.
When Luz finally got over the hump of the hill, she saw a building the shape of a cylinder. Moss was strung like cobwebs on the right side of the structure; the other side faced the boiling sea. If it had sprouted from the earth like a tree, Luz wouldn’t have known any better. The roof was a sphere and a large optical tube stuck out of it. In the eye of the telescope was a sharp pupil with a yellow sclera. A little wooden door was situated facing down the forest she’d just come from.
“What is this?” Luz stared in wonder at the structure.
“It’s an abandoned observatory me and Lily found. Watch this,” Eda opened her hand up for Stringbean, who crawled right into her palm. She shifted the palisman into her staff form and pointed her at the building. A blast of dark purple magic erupted from the little snake’s mouth and barreled towards the building. Luz stared in horror, waiting for the blast to hit and her wonderful gift to be vaporized into rubble. But when the beam of magic hit the stone wall, it disappeared without a trace. The only thing that changed about the building was a purple glow where the magic had been directed. “It absorbs magic! I think it’s either something that sprouted from the Titan, or it was built by an extremely powerful witch a long time ago. You like it?”
“I love it so much! It’s like you looked into my dreams and referenced them when making a ship-kid of magic and science!” Luz squealed, “But also never do that again. You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“That’s what you get for scaring me half to death for disappearing earlier!” Eda ruffled the girl’s hair.
“Wait, why didn’t we just fly here?”
“Luz, don’t you know anything about dramatic build ups? They’re in all of those Azura books that you read! If we just flew here there’d be no dramatic tension!”
“Both of my moms are nerds!” Luz laughed and hugged Eda. They were one odd family. A god, a witch, and a human girl weren’t usually as close as they were, if they ever even knew each other at all.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Go check it out!” Eda lovingly pushed Luz towards her gift.
“Okay!” Luz grabbed the stump of Eda’s hook and led her to the little wooden door. Vines creeping on it sprouted weeping lilies and torched roses. When she reached for the knob, the door swung open. “Woah, magic door!”
Inside the observatory, a chandelier with encased light glyphs hung from the ceiling. Painting the walls was scenery of infinite snowy landscapes, and stars creating unimaginably beautiful sights. A snow beast slept somewhere deep in the fields of white. The art had been enchanted with some sort of spell, one that must’ve been long forgotten, and was made to move like it was real. For all Luz knew, there was a possibility that in some way, it was real. The art even passed over the shelves encompassing the room. Books, potions and all sorts of fantastical nick-nacks stocked the shelves.
Luz squealed like a little girl, “This place looks like it was ripped straight out of a fantasy novel! Oh my Titan, Eda, thank you, thank you so much! I love it more than anything ever!”
“Even more than me?” A drowsy little Titan asked her from the crook of a feathery arm.
“No, King. I could never love it more than you, ya goober!” Luz pecked him on his boney forehead. The boy giggled at the little show of affection, before sliding out of his mother’s grasp. His yellow-and-pink eyes observed the room he’d been taken to. Bathed in the soft glory of moonlight, the room was the prettiest thing the little god had ever seen.
“I came here when Eda and Lilith began working on it, but wow.”
“And that’s not all,” Luz gasped as she was swept up by large owl wings. They soared up through the tower, towards a glassy moon, glittering in the center of the ceiling. Just before they slammed into it, a mouth opened just above their heads and swallowed them up. The place they ended up was pitch-black, the only sight being a window shimmering as it allowed the silent starlight into the room. A cracking sounded through the air, before the crisp odor of ash watered her eyes and the dancing of orange light illuminated the room.
Luz's dangling feet hit the hard-wood floor with a smack. "What… is this place?" She observed the room like she was a visitor in a museum.
"The bedroom! And the study room! And- well, you can really just use it for whatever you want," King announced from his perch at the edge of the fireplace. A nest sat not too far from the fireplace. Something familiar was in the weaved sticks and hay, something Luz couldn't immediately put her finger on.
“Wait,” Luz leaned down and ruffled the surprisingly soft bedding, "Oh my Titan, Eda!"
"Yup! Mama Eda gave you her ol' nest! Thing was gettin too small for my wings, like to give them some air when I sleep. Plus, a bird can't leave the nest without some reminder of home, otherwise she'll get too big for her britches and go forgetten the ones who preened her wings in the first place. Happened to both me and Lily, can't let it happen to my girl."
"I promise I won't forget you. How could I?"
"I said the exact same thing to my Mother when I was just a girl, only a wee bit younger than you are now. Then I ran away and refused to speak to her for, what, twenty-seven years?"
"Yeah, but so far you haven't made a mess up big enough to warrant me not talking to you for more than a day."
"You think mess-ups are born from malice, dont'cha? Nope. My mama messed up because she loved me like a mother should, not because she was prayin to the Titan on my downfall."
"Then we'll talk. Don't get yourself in a hoot just yet, alright?" Luz took Eda's thin, aged hand in her young ones, "We're not just family, we're weirdos! And weirdos don't follow the norms, do they?"
Eda laughed at the girl's remark, "No, no they don't."
“That's right! So the only thing you should expect to happen in the future is the unexpected.”
Eda gave the girl a fond, motherly smile, “Aren’t I one lucky witch to be able to call Luz Noceda my daughter? You’re real smart, kiddo. I can tell I gifted a laboratory to not just my smart girl, but a great witch.”
“Not just any great witch, either!” King added, “Human by ear, witch by heart, and Titan by brain.”
Luz scooped him up like she had when he was just a pup, “Oh, looks like someones been stealing from my poetry shelf! I’ve been wondering where they’ve been going, you little word monster!” King laughed as she spun him round and round until his head was spinning like a flying teacup.
The two of them collapsed into the gifted nest. Eda slipped next to them, her legs dangling over the edge and her wings laid across her children. Luz, drowned in the warmth of child-like nostalgia, looked up to the ceiling. Just like the down-stairs, the walls were covered in moving pictures. But instead of the soaring sky or endless landscapes, there was a swirling pit of orange, yellow, and red staring back at her. If it didn’t so perfectly reflect the colors of Luz’s heart, she’d have said that it was mimicking the fireplace.
“So, what are we going to do tomorrow?” Luz asked, eyes still glued to the cauldron of warm swirls.
“Well,” Eda stretched before continuing, “You got your first day of school.”