To Look for History Where It's Been Erased, Part 1
To Look for History Where It's Been Erased
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Willow
Willow gripped Clover tightly and looked at Hunter. He was making last-minute checks on the purposely faulty portal before they decided to all walk into the void together. There were going to be four of them going in. Song, Amity, Gus, and Willow herself, though Willow would’ve preferred if King came, but they didn’t know how using a defective portal would work on him. He was the source of it, after all. Willow noticed Lilith speaking to Eda before she walked over to Amity and told her something as well. Then Lilith shifted into harpy form and took off in what Willow thought was the direction of the Old Castle.
“Where’s she going off to?” Willow asked Amity, who was working on some of the mechanisms.
“She wanted to do research on magic that could help reassemble Luz once we collect all the different bits,” Amity responded, looking at Song. Willow couldn’t help but feel bad for her. She knew that the half-titan was conflicted about everything, but Willow didn’t know how to help. It was an impossible question that Willow didn’t want to answer yet.
“Hey, guys! Ready?” Hunter called from behind them
“Ready as we’ll ever be, dude.” Gus called back” Now send us in!” giving Hunter some finger guns. Willow smiled at Hunter, but she noticed that he was looking nervous too. His hands were shaking as he inserted King's blood into the battery slot. They wanted to try Song’s blood, but she insisted that her half-human nature diluted the blood just enough to where she couldn’t make a portal. Willow decided to check on her boyfriend to make sure he was doing alright.
“Hunter, what's going on?” Willow asked gently.
“Oh, I’m sending my girlfriend, best friend, and two sisters into a place that literally separated someone into their three core components,” He said with a nervous laugh, “I mean– nothing can go wrong there!”
“Hunter, remember what we were working on?” Willow asked softly.
“Self-confidence,” He mumbled. Willow gave him a peck on the cheek. It had been a process with Hunter, and self-confidence was something he had always had trouble with.
“I trust you,” Willow said, putting her hands on his shoulders., “I would want no one else running this show other than you!”
Hunter gave a smile and whispered, “Just be safe,”
“When am I never not safe?”
“Everyday Wils. You play flyer derby,” He said sarcastically. Willow snickered at that. With that, she gave Hunter one last kiss on the cheek and walked back to their crew.
“He good?” Gus asked.
“He’s good,” Willow confirmed.
Everyone stood in front of the door, its sprawling wires taking up a good portion of Eda’s front yard. Willow, Gus, Amity, and Song stood in front of the door, whilst Eda and Hunter stood next to the portal. Everyone checked their tethers before Amity gave Eda a thumbs up.
“One defective portal door, coming right up!” Eda yelled, slamming the lever down.
There was a zap, and then the air got cold. Large waves of magic electricity ran down the wires connecting to the door as all the different parts began to whir and click. Willow started getting worried when the old oaken door started shaking and wobbling, looking ready to explode at any moment. It lifted off the ground, and to Willow's surprise, it folded in on itself with a pop. For one horrible second, she thought they’d failed, but it was back in a flash. The door itself was lopsided, caving in and out on itself. It started rattling almost immediately, the door swinging open with a creak. Willow gave Amity a nervous nod, and the began to approach it.
“Ready?” Amity asked. Willow, Song, and Gus nodded.
To Look for History Where It's Been Erased
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Willow
The first thing Willow felt as they fell was how warm it was. That was immediately wrong. Song had described the Void as cold. Then she hit the water with a splash. Willow squeezed her eyes closed as she scrambled to find solid ground.
“Willow! Open your eyes!” she heard Gus call. Willow did and was blinded by sterling light mixed with gold. She took a deep breath and just got up, the water tensing as she did so like it was responding to her wishes.
Willow looked around. They were in a blindingly white place, and the walls were lined with gold circles and stars. The gold was pulsating. At first, it was hard to notice because of the whiteness, but it was definitely pulsing throughout this void. The new area felt warm but not too welcoming. Willow suspected that even if this was a different void, it didn’t like that they were there.
“This doesn’t seem right,” Gus said, tapping a wall the pearly white walls.“Song, didn’t you say the void was dark?”
“Yeah, that’s because it is,” Song said, sounding just as confused.
“So what do we do?” Willow asked.
“Well, let’s look around,” Amity said nervously, picking a direction to walk in. Song followed after her.
Willow shrugged at Gus and followed her. This void didn’t feel watery like Song had described. As Willow walked, it felt thicker, more resistant to her steps than she thought the water would be. The best Willow could think is that this “water” felt milky more than anything. Willow was starting to get a feeling she unshakable feeling of being uncomfortable. The pulsating gold and the warmth made her think of something alive.
“Amity? Song?” Willow asked, jogging to catch up.
“Yea, Wils?” Amity said absent-mindedly.
“I have an idea,” Willow started. “I think this place might be alive.”
If silence could be heard, then it was a concert right now. The only sounds were of water sloshing as Gus walked around. Amity was deep in thought and didn’t respond while Gus began to inspect the walls. Song looked a bit angry.
“No, that’s wrong! The Void is terrible! It breaks things, and it dark and cold and-”
“Dead?” Willow asked.
“Yes. It connected to everything,” Song growled, touching one of the white walls.
She then extracted a cube from it, “ there was not one point in which… I- she- we felt alive in there.” Song tossed the cube back into the wall with a splash and folded her arms.
“Guys, what's the difference between this portal and the one before we defeated Belos?” Gus asked.
Amity still wasn’t paying attention and was wandering around the white void, occasionally calling out to Luz. Willow’s gut told her that Luz’s mind wasn’t there. This place was so new; that’s why it was warm and alive.
“Well, we used King's blood,” Gus said, grabbing one of the floating cubes. “But before, we just had to use any old titan’s blood.”
That’s when a light in between Song’s horns lit up, and she grabbed Amity by the arm.
“Ames!” Song yelled.“I understand what’s happened,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Amity asked, looking confused.
Song looked down and went silent. “Let’s just get out of here. I don’t like it, even if it is alive,” she said. Willow looked at Song and sighed. It felt weird to see Luz look so serious under all the fluff. Even when they were trapped in the human realm, Luz had always tried at least to put up the facade of being happy, even with all the stress she was under. But this person, Song? Willow hadn’t seen Song make a single joke or smile out of anything besides politeness.
“Hey, before anything, what the heck is that?” Gus said, pointing behind Song. Willow looked behind them to see the strangest thing. It was The Owl House, sitting quite plainly in the middle of the milky liquid. They all walked over to it, and began examining it. Willow would’ve said it was a perfect recreation of The Owl House, except it was full of way too many items. It looked like everything the Owl House had ever been was crammed into this one replica.
“What is this?” Amity asked as she picked up several Francois from the ground.
“It’s a memory, well, every memory of this place that King’s had,” Song said, poking a huge stack of stuffed animals.
“What?” Amity asked,
“I’ll explain, but please, let's just get out of here,” Song said, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Okay then, let’s go,” Willow said, turning to Amity.
“Yeah, let's go. This place is too different from what Song described anyways,” she told Willow. They all grabbed each other's arms and tugged their individual tethers.
To Look for History Where It's Been Erased
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Amity
Amity slammed into the ground; the air was knocked out of her lungs when Song landed on her.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Ames,” Song cried, standing up. She then extended a claw, helping Amity up. “I didn’t mean to!”
“No, it’s okay,” Amity winced, rubbing her ribs. The portal had ejected them with a lot of force, with Amity and Song being thrown basically across the lawn of the Owl House. Amity looked back to see the portal crumple up and blip out of existence, and she sighed. At least they had a line of thinking now.
“Kids!” Eda yelled, rushing over to them. She gave them all a big hug, squeezing them tight. Hunter joined in soon after.
“Oh, she’s squishing me!” Gus squealed as he squirmed out of the pile. Eda then let them go and started asking questions.
“How’d it go?” Eda asked, “Did you find her noggin in there?”
“No,” Amity sighed. She looked at Song, the latter being more perceptive than Luz, managed to pick up what Amity wanted to say.
“King’s blood takes us to his inbetween,” Song said.
“What?” King asked. “What does that mean?”
“Well,” Song said, standing up to her full height. “It works like this, Titans create their own inbetweens based on their life. King, you have an affinity for the human and demon realms, so your inbetween only connects those two places.” Song looked around, expecting questions, but Amity nudged her to keep going.
“See, I wasn’t in King’s inbetween, I went to his dad's,” Song put a claw on her chin. “So if you want to find Ms. Luz’s mind, that's where we must go.”
Ms. Luz. Amity certainly hadn’t ever expected words like that to come out of Luz’s mouth. Getting off track.
“How do you know this kid? Remember, I looked up there. There's not much rattling around in your head,” Eda asked. Amity wondered as well, but she realized that Song had an intuition when it came to titan-related things. Amity had forgotten when she simply commanded a snowstorm to stop.
“Eda, I believe her,” Amity said. “She has an intuition when it comes to magic like this. I’ve seen it.”
Eda looked curiously at Amity.
“Okay, Blight,” Eda sighed. “I trust you.”
“So how do we get to the Titan's Inbetween, kid?” Eda asked, turning to Song. It was King who answered, pulling on his mom's dress.
“Well, Mom, we need my dad’s blood.”
And that was that. They needed the Titan's blood, not any Titan's blood. And they had no leads.
To Look for History Where It's Been Erased
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Lilith
Lilith held the lamp up higher, hoping to get a better view of the Archive's empty bowels. The place had been picked clean throughout the years, first by looters and then by Lilith herself. She had relocated most of what she wanted to Hexside, but some stuff remained. Small things that Lilith never bothered picking up, but she was here for the small things today. She walked silently, searching for the corner where she’d found leftover relics.
“Lulu! Why are we here?” Hooty asked, his voice echoing in the empty chamber.
“Well, Hootsifer, I’m looking for a story,” Lilith told her friend.
“A story! I love stories! This one time I-”
“Hootsifer, not now,” Lilith cooed, “We are looking for a specific story.”
“What is it?” Hooty asked.
“It seemed like a child tale, so I didn’t bother memorizing it, but I believe- It may be pertinent to our current endeavors.”
“You think a kid's story could bring Luz back?” Hooty asked. Lilith chuckled. Hooty had been unnaturally serious when the topic of Luz came up. Even the house demon could calm things down.
“Well, Hootsifer. I think it might be able to point us in the right direction.”
They walked quietly for a couple more minutes before Lilith’s lamp illuminated a small cart full of various artifacts. Lilith rushed over to it and began rummaging through it fiercely. Although she was careful not to damage anything, she went as fast as possible. Lilith only recollected
a small amount about this tale, having only read once, but she needed to make sure.
And then she found it. It was snapped into two pieces, but the thick stone slab still had legible words on it. She thought back to the large stack of stone tablets that the Collector had called bedtime stories. They were full of myths and children's tales that Lilith had conflicted feelings about, but this one seemed the most bizarre as it conflicted with everything she knew about the past. It suggested that the Archivists and Titans had once been friends, but even the Collector themselves had said it was a dumb kids' story.
If this story was a silly bedtime tale for an ageless god, then what was it to mortals?
Lilith looked down at the tablet and sighed. She wondered why the Collector's stories were written in the language of the Boiling Isles.
“Hootsifer,” Lilith said.
“Yes, Lulu?!”
“Let’s get this to Raine,” they might be able to help us decode it.”
“Why?” Hooty asked
“Well, it’s a limerick,” Lilith sighed, “the worst of all poetry.”
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Here's a bit more art. It's not a scene in the fic(yet), but hey, it was super fun to draw.
I hope you like it.
