And What Will We Do Tomorrow?

School. Anyone with a right mind hated that place like it was their worst enemy. Luckily for her, Luz wasn’t very right in the head. Her short, curly hair bounced all over the place as she half-walk, half-skipped through the halls. For the next four years, these walls would be hers to carve and the classes hers to reshape. The new Boiling Isles was a wonderful place, and the School of Wild Magic was just about to prove that to her ten-fold.
Stringbean sat on Luz’s shoulder. Her forked tongue was out, taking in every scent she could get a whiff of. Her excitement at the new places and faces turned her thin scales into thick bushes of fur.

“First class we have is Palisman carving 101. Bat Queen teaches that, so you better be on your best behavior! You know how she is with misbehaving children, and I’m not looking to get in trouble on the first day,” Luz spoke to the little snake sitting atop the thick stack of books in her arms.

‘You can trust me! I’ll be the best snake ever!’

Luz chuckled as Stringbean rubbed against her face, “Alright, alright, I believe you. Don’t make me regret bringing you to class, alright? Because if you do… I’ll have to send you to Palisman Daycare.”

‘What?!” Stringbean’s jaw hung open, ‘Please, don’t send me there! It’s so boringggg.’

“Then behave!” Luz gave her one last scolding. They approached the door that led to the palisman classroom. The door must have been twice as tall as a full-grown witch and wider than a mountain. Its shiny golden knob that sprouted from the wood looked comically small in comparison. Luz turned it and took her chance at trying to open the multi-ton door, but it was useless.

Luz grunted as she continued to try and push open the door, but she found that no matter what she did, it was futile. "Ugh! What's wrong with this thing?" She stood, balled-up hands to hips. The only thing Luz was missing was a wild bush of gray hair and a sassy hook replacing her forearm and she'd be the spitting image of her mentor.

'Maybe it's a challenge! You said that The Bat Queen appreciates those who know how to truly speak to their palisman, right? She might've enchanted it so that only little goobers like me can open it!' Stringbean curled herself around the handle and tried to push the door to either side. When she pulled left instead of right, it cracked open just a bit. 'We did it! Team work makes the dream work!'

"Actually," Luz pulled the door the rest of the way open, "I think the door was just a pull door, not push," big, sad eyes stared into her soul, "But I wouldn't have figured it out if you hadn't done what you did! Thanks, little guy."

'Best friends!' Stringbean meowed like a kitten as she affectionately rubbed against her mother/best friend/owner's face. Luz reciprocated with a scratch behind the ear.

Immediately as Luz and Stringbean entered the classroom (which wasn't really even a room) they were met with a booming voice, deep and feminine. "Ah, Human baby and Stringbean! Glad to see you, friends. Please, children, take seat. We start soon."

"Thank you, The Bat Queen!" Luz bowed.

"No. Just Bat Queen. And do not bow, that is weird."

Luz's face flushed as she straightened herself, "Right, sorry."

"It is quite alright, Human baby, your oddness is not a thing to have shame over. Palismen tend to take a liking to the odd ones, but you would benefit from dropping the formal names. Now, go sit, little one.”

Luz scanned the rows of blankets that were strung across the dirt floor. She’d thought that she’d be the first person to class, but after spotting a head full of poorly groomed blonde hair, she knew that being second place would become a common experience for her. Wobbling over to Hunter with a twirling Stringbean in tow felt like some sort of walk of shame.

A gun-shot had just gone off, and the rat-race had begun.

"Hunter! How long have you been waiting?" Luz huffed the question as she collapsed into a criss cross sitting position. The books in front of her were clumsily shoved onto the floor, sending the top text-book to the floor.

"Oh, not very long! I came here straight from palisman carving lessons with Dell," Hunter grabbed the fallen object and, with rough, yet somehow gentle hands, placed it back on top of the perch it'd abandoned. Little did he know, the action born from kindness only kindled the green flickering in Luz's heart.

"Really? How has it been?"

"Just fine! Oh, and guess what? Next week I'm carving a trio-toad for a kid named Baxter. It will be my first time ever making a palisman just on my own!"

"Coolio! When you finish, you have to send me a picture. Finally got my own scroll, so I can give you my penstagram after class."

“Will do.”

For the next thirty minutes the ‘desks’ surrounding them surely began to fill up with students. Some had youthful faces, with little pigtails and curly horns, while others had sagging cheeks and thick glasses sat on the tip of their nose. With the new witches and demons came their palismen, all with different appearances and voices. One of the witches even had a unicorn! The cute little thing had taken a liking to Stringbean, and had tried to coax the palisman into playing with them. But Stringbean, being the hermit she was, took to hiding inside Luz’s sleeve over social interaction. Though Waffles gladly took them up on the offer. The two were now duking it out, play wrestling on the floor.

“Golden bird, calm your palisman. We will have plenty bloodshed soon,” Luz yelped. There’d been no audible sign that The Bat Queen had approached. Not even the tap of a wooden foot or the sag of a thousand year old lung as it reluctantly took another breath was noticed.

Hunter nodded, “Waffles!” The blue-tipped bird stopped violently pecking at the belly of the unicorn and turned to face her boy. It was impossible to tell whether nothing was happening behind their impressively large eyes, or if they held the answers to every question in the universe. Luz expected them to bust out ethereal poetry in a godly voice, and when they finally made a sound she was shocked when the bird sung an average note and hopped onto Hunter’s shoulder. “You did good, girl!”

“Good fight! Janner sure is feisty, I think this is the first time she’s ever been bested like that,” a bipedal demon with the appearance of an Eastern Red Bat praised Waffles. She puffed up her chest. The little unicorn had taken to sitting in the crook of the demon’s fuzzy neck, his rainbow hair sticking out like a sore-thumb compared to the red of his owner’s coat. “The names Las! How about you?” They held out their hand.

“Hunter Noceda! Glad to finally meet someone with a palisman with just as much of a fighting spirit as mine. She usually hangs out with me at the nursery, so it’ll be good for her to befriend some older palismen. Dell probably wouldn’t be happy to find her challenging newly carved babies to death battles.”

“You work with Dell? How-”

Blah blah blah! The cheesy conversations between the two felt like the equivalent to the busy-work she was forced to trudge through in human highschool. Luz could only pray to the Titan that Eda was good enough at her job to refuse such a disservice to take place in her school.

“Hush, little ones. Is time to learn,” The Bat Queen stood at the front of the room. “Today is the first day, so your trials will be simple.”

All the witches and demons sat attentively, eyes glittering in the natural light as they held their heads high for their ancient teacher. Her flat lips curved into a smirk, and her resting eyes slithered on her face like pathetic snakes.

“You will present one special trick you can do with palisman. Green haired witch, you first!” The Queen’s words were served on a scalding platter, and her face dared you to touch it.

“Oh, uh- alright.” A girl tripped over her words and her feet as she made a less than successful attempt from jumping from a criss cross position to a standing one. Her legs shook like brittle leaves surviving the force of a hurricane. When she finally made it to the front of the room, a stick bug crawled out from her shirt collar. “This is my palisman, Barry, and he-uhm- he helps me with my beastkeeping magic.” She transformed him into his staff form, which just looked like a regular stick.

With one hand she drew a spell circle, and in the other she held Barry. Once the orange circle was complete, she thrust the staff through it. From the ground, seemingly millions of beetles and ants rose. It was kind of like watching a zombie movie but the dead rising is bugs instead of people. The girl’s strained posture subsided and her storm of shakes quieted into little sways. Tiny beasts inched up her body, but she wasn’t screaming bloody death as they devoured every morsel of flesh on her bones, in fact, she was giggling.

“Very impressive, Little Snapdragon. You pass, now sit,” The Bat Queen commanded with a flat voice. The girl did as told, and after putting the swarms of bugs back into the ground they’d come from, she took her seat. “Next up, Baby Human!”

Luz didn’t hesitate to make her way to the front of the room. Pride was by her side as she shifted Stringbean into her staff form. When she reached the head of the room, she turned to face the rest of the class, a confident smirk creasing her face.

“I’m Luz Noceda, and this is my palisman, Stringbean!” She held her high, and even while made of wood Luz could see the glee in the snake’s face as the class fawned over her. “Ever since glyphs stopped working, she and I have worked out a system that will allow me to perform magic.”

“Light,” Stringbean burped an orb of shimmering yellow.

“Plants,” hydrangeas burst from the ground below, before rejoining the earth just as quickly as they had risen from it.

“Fire,” Stringbean’s jaw hung open, and a ball of light-purple fire roared from her little body.

“And last but not least, ice!” Luz froze the fire before it could spread. The class roared with oohs and aahs. She stood with her chin up high, pointed to the sun. She’d done it once again. The little duo of oddness had wowed the world once again, but The Bat Queen was certainly not the world.

“Failed. Go sit down.”
The bulb of light bubbling through the air popped. Luz turned to The Bat Queen, an expression of terror on her face, “What? No, surely there’s some kind of misunderstanding.”

“I do not misunderstand. Now sit.”

Luz wanted to continue arguing with her, but she knew that it'd be fruitless. The Bat Queen was like a mountain: once it was in place, it wouldn’t budge. She simply nodded and sat back down, for there was nothing else to do. It wasn’t often that she accepted defeat without a fight to the death first, and doing so without such grand (and dramatic) gestures made her face feel hot.

A hand was placed on her shoulder, and Luz didn’t even need to look up to see who it was. She could hear the quiet whispers of palismen communicating with each other. The hiss of a snake and tweet of a bird, and she could tell they were talking about her. Palismen gossip, she usually relished in its oddness. After all, someone talking about the latest hot goss with their wooden animal pet is quite a humorous scene. But right now, it was nothing but annoying. Were they making fun of her or pitying her? She hoped it was neither.

The rest of the class period went by in a blur. Luz couldn’t focus on any of the other students and their presentations, all she could think about was that the first grade of her college life was an F. How could she call herself a real witch if she wasn’t even good at having the basic accessory of one?

Before Luz realized it, the scream of a bell broke her from her somber and put her on her feet. While everyone else was gathering their supplies and filing out of the room, Luz stood as still and unknowing as an old pillar, thinking of what to do.

“Human baby, why are you still here? Your next class starts soon,” The Bat Queen queried her without getting any closer or farther from Luz.

Luz blinked, “I wanted to talk about my grade. Why did you fail me? I did good, didn’t I?’

“Hm, I see. I was right,” she hummed the words like she’d been waiting to say them all her life.

“What? What does that mean?”

“Human baby, you have focused yourself too much on being the best. But you forget, you did not save the Isles by being the best, you saved it by being Luz Noceda. Luz Noceda is not the best at everything, and never will be, because she is living and breathing like I. Strive to be better without striving for non-failure, refusing to fail turns a respectable, hard working witch into someone who never takes anything less than what they believe they deserve, which is god-like respect." The only thing Luz could respond with was silence. She didn't think that any combination of letters and words could respond to what she'd just been told without disrespecting the teller. In the silence, The Bat Queen started again, "It's time for you to run along now, human. If you're so focused on not failing, then you'll likely be interested in making it to your next class on time."

Luz nodded, mouth still arid, before grabbing her books and making her way out the door and into the halls. Now the halls were emptying. The only students left were ones speed-walking to their class. Next was beastkeeping, a class she only had every Monday. Luz had typical coven classes every day, but each took place only once per week. Hunter had encouraged her to take beastkeeping on a monday, so that they'd have two class periods together.
It didn't take long to reach the beastkeeping room, which, like the palisman class, wasn't really a room at all. Instead there were rows and rows of vines at the end of one of the many halls. After pushing past the wall, Luz entered a humongous butterfly garden. Lucky for her, she made it a little less than a minute before the class officially began.

"Hello, class. For our first class of the semester I have invited an infamous member of the beastkeeping coven to speak to you all about the form of magic you will be studying in here. Please welcome former coven head Eberwolf, and please, for the love of the Titan, be respectful," a boring looking teacher with an ever more uninteresting voice announced.

"That's my uncle!" Hunter whispered to Luz.

"Who, that boring hag?"

"No, no, not him; Eberwolf!"

"Since when were you adopted by all the ex-coven heads?"

"Hey, it's not all of them! Only two, and you have an ex-coven head for a parent, don't you? Raine Whispers might not have been in it for very long, but they were still there."

"Hm," Luz paused, "What happened to the rest of the coven heads?"

"The only thing that I know is that Adrian Graye had some kind of crisis and has been in-and-out of wards ever since. Looks like Gus really packed him a punch. But other than that no… but I do think one of Terra's grandkids is in our first period."

"Who?"

"The cool bug-beastkeeper witch who was a nervous wreck. Y'know, Bat Queen called her 'Baby Snapdragon' after she finished."

"Oh, guess I wasn't paying attention."

"Yeah," Hunter stopped, teetering too close for comfort to talking about Luz's failure in the previous class.

Where the teacher had once been standing was now a bipedal demon with a bright red mane and a fluffy orange coat. They drew a spell circle in the air, and it remained floating even when they lowered their finger.
In a voice that sounded like a dog if it had the ability to speak, the demon spoke, "Hello, pups learning the way of beastkeeping! I am Eberwolf the Huntsman, the only demon on the Isles capable of wrangling a spider-horse without getting bucked into a mud-web. You will be taught by my old under-study, Garfield. He might tell you to call him Mr. Cheddar, but don't listen to him, he's not very fond of jokes. He won't be much of a hoot, so you better have brought your sleeping pillows!" They laughed like they'd just told the funniest joke in the history of the Boiling Isles. When no one else in the room had bothered to laugh along with them, they stopped abruptly. “I’ve come here to show you what a fully developed beastkeeper can do.”

The spell circle they’d drawn fizzled out. Eberwolf ran in a circle, making a large shape underneath them. When they finished, the orange lines blasted the room in light. What emerged from the floor was a butterfly with the head of a dragon and the legs of a man. It reached the roof of the garden and huffed smoke down upon the students, screeching in a mix of amazement and horror.

“What the,” Luz hacked up flakes of ash, “what is that?!”

“A Butterbite, they’re one of the most formidable beasts on the Isles,” Hunter responded without a hint of terror at the beast who’s humid breathe could be felt brushing back against their hair.
“Have you seen it before or something?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Eberwolf brings me to their sanctuary every now and again,” Luz nodded, before turning her attention back to the little beast at the front of the room. The teacher had rejoined the stage, and he did not look pleased.

"Mr.Huntsman, what has gotten into you? Summoning a beast that large in a classroom?! Get that thing out of here this instant!" Garfield spat. He had expected them to get a move on the moment the demon had heard him, but he knew he was wrong when big, black eyeballs inspected his soul like it was neither intriguing nor boring. From the perch of the butterbite's back a little gremlin sat judging him. "Huntsman, didn't you hear me? We must get a move on with class!" He clapped and whistled, trying to make himself appear as a figure worthy of respect. At least enough so that they'd be offered the kindness of acknowledgement.

"Rule number one of Beastkeeping," Eberwolf growled. "Never make unnecessary loud noises." The butterbite bucked into the air. A shriek echoed through the garden. Millions of butterflies flung from the bushes and trees, having been alerted to the distress of one of their sisters. They struck Garfield like rainbow lightning. As their little wings swarmed and smothered the man, he pierced the air with a verbal display of terror. One of the butterflies was pushed back outwards, a runny stream of crimson dripping down its wing was made shown to the world, and the world stared back without aide.

No one made a sound. No sob, no shriek, not even the thunk of a heart. The room was a porcelain vase, and a bat had just slammed into the bottom of it. Mr.Cheddar coughed and sputtered as the little-wings crowded into his mouth and throat.

"Hep," he wheezed. The crowd was shattered, if for only a moment, when he collapsed to the floor, "HELP!" But his pleads were soon stomped out. When he stopped, they left the stage like they had just put on a little play. A cute little story about nature and love, and they were the beautiful set pieces that tied it all together with a shiny red ribbon.

"Rule number two of Beastkeeping: the beasts did it," even without the magic to make their language identifiable, every word Eberwolf spoke was clear as day. They drew an orange circle in the air, and spoke into it, "Welcome to Eda's School of Wild Magic. Can anyone tell me what we do as witches and demons who practice wild magic?”

Even though requested, no one rose their hand, they didn’t even twitch. Something similar to static was buzzing in their head, blocking out anything resembling a sane thought.

“No? Then allow me,” they snapped, and the pile of bones on the floor melted away. Standing where his corpse once slept, Garfield smiled. “We practice all kinds of magic!”

“Oh what the hell?” One of the students squawked.

“Illusion magic, students. It will be an important subject to study when it comes to beasts. With the ability to control an animals senses gives you the ability to control their emotions, and that can save your life,” Garfield lectured like they hadn’t just stared at his corpse with its sliced-open fingers tips and stringy intestines only a few seconds earlier.

“That was unnecessary… and traumatizing,” though Luz was barely moved. She’d seen far, far worse in her eighteen years of life.

“Eh, you’ll get used to it. Eberwolf likes to do dramatic little shows like these a lot,” Hunter pressed his chin against the ball of his palm, the same unamused expression painting him.

‘Waffles will make enemies look like that,’ the little bird tweeted.

“If you keep making those sorts of comments I’m not going to let you keep watching crime shows with my mama,” Luz teased. The blue jay made an aray of offended squabbles at her. She lightly pecked at her nose and tugged on her curls. “You little shit,” Luz giggled.

“You two, silence! And I don’t want to hear cursing in my class!” Garfield interrupted them. He was stood right next to them, like he had just teleported there. The white whiskers of his mustache dangled above them like thin cotton clouds.

“Sorry!” Luz forced herself to look composed. He examined her for a minute, before humming nothing distinct and walking away.

When Garfield had retreated back to the center of the room, he stood next to Eberwolf, who was now sitting on the head of a worm with teeth. “Me and Eberwolf will be your teachers. They will teach you beastkeeping, and I will teach you how to combine it with other forms of magic. Class dismissed, I’m sure you’ll want time before your next period to cope."

Taking their sweet time, the witches and demons slowly filed out of the room. Having sat in the back pocket of the room, Luz and Hunter were some of the last to leave.

"Pup!" Eberwolf barked. They hopped off the worm and skipped over to Hunter.

The sudden weight of a tiny man whose weight was fifty percent fur sent Hunter fumbling like a baby on ice skates. "Oof," he said as he was knocked off his feet. When he hit the floor, he sighed and responded with, "Hey, Peepaw."

‘How’s your first day of school been so far?’ Eberwolf spoke in their natural language.

“It’s been good. Have you been enjoying making your first class memorable?”

‘Yes! Last period one of the little pups shrieked when it got to the part where he died! Very funny.’

“I’m sure it was like getting a laughing-bug bite. But maybe tone it down on the guts and gore next time.”

‘Never! Eberwolf enjoys scaring little birds!’

“Eberwolf,” Hunter whined, “If you keep doing that you’ll get yourself fired! Eda might have the same love for vomit-inducing shows, but if the parents complain too much she’ll have no choice but to get rid of you. Just try and make it a little… less emotionally scarring next time?”

Eberwolf groaned, ‘Fine, little owl, the oh so wise.’ They crawled back onto the floor, allowing Hunter to stand up.

Hunter smirked as he did so, “I am very wise, so thank you!”

‘Little bad word.’

“Gasp! I guess I just won’t get you any cheezits next time I go to the human store!” Hunter acted out his words like a shoddy and overly-passionate stage performer.

‘Fine by me!’ Eberwolf barked through a smile, before turning and running back over to Garfield. Hunter chuckled as he watched the mighty crown of red hair bounce out of its pony tail as they ran.

When Hunter turned on heels and faced Luz, she questioned the conversation that she just had the (mis)fortune of witnessing, “You can speak beast?!” She asked in a flurry of awe and bewilderment.

“Yes! Also, it’s not called beast, it’s scientific name is Aenocyon Dirus,” Waffles took back her throne smack-dab in the center of Hunter’s nest of a hair. Not even a brush could save that thing.

“Uh-huh?” Her smile was one of an all-knowing beast that only had the desire to clown, “And how long did it take you to memorize that name?”

“Only a week!”

“Sureee,” she hummed, “But anyways, you wanna go to the new ice-scream parlor after school? They have your favorite flavor.”

“Ooo, as much as I’d love to have some green bean ice-scream, I can’t. I have to drop Waffles off at Camila’s and then go do something called a ‘spa day’ with Darius; but I think I’m free tomorrow!”

Luz cringed, “Sorry, I have a date with Amity tomorrow. Wednesday work?”

“Helping Lilith coax some more forbidden books out of the castle. How about Thursday?”

“I have work both Thursday and Friday.”

“Geez,” Hunter wheezed through a dry laugh. “When did we get so busy?”

“I don’t know, but I definitely need some kind of break.”

“Well, I know it’s only the beginning of the year, but when boiling break rolls around you and I should stay at the knee for a week or two. Nothing but cold air and sweet old witches baking goods!”

“Hm, that does sound nice. But knowing my life there’ll probably be an apocalypse going down when I get back,” Hunter and Luz laughed, but both of them knew there was no humor in her words. They were as true as scrapple pie was sour. Silence turned the air into a humid fog, a kind of humid that stuck to your skin and only left once it had sucked out every last drop of life.

“I should- uh- get to my next class, you know,” Hunter broke the unbearable force that had overtaken them, “Boiling Isles history is on the other side of the school, and I don’t want to be late.”

“Alright, well I’ll see you later, alligator.”

“In a while, crocodile.”