The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

Eda looked up to the sky in worry. The girls had been gone for quite a while.

She was getting ready to go off after them when she noticed an airship fast approaching.

"Ah, farts," she declared. Then paused. "Wait, the kids are gone. I can swear for real! Son of a—"

Unfortunately for Eda, it was a very fast-approaching airship, and it caught up to her and landed nearby in the few moments where she was reveling in being able to cuss for the first time since she found King.

Up close, she could easily notice the abomination theming on the ship, and as she took a defensive stance a man she recognized from her school days disembarked. A male witch, now middle-aged, with messy brown hair held up by his goggles and a ratlike posture stepped forward.

"Edalyn," began Alador Blight, "where is my daughter?"

"I told you when I called last night," Eda defended, "I'm keeping her safe till she's ready to go home."

"I thought you were letting her stay at your shack in the woods," the chief engineer of Blight Industries declared, "not dragging her to the Knee of all places."

"How did you find us up here, anyway?" Eda questioned. "When I talked to you last night you didn't even know that Boots was missing until I told you."

"When Odalia's tracking spell said—"

"Tracking spell!?" two voices shouted in unison. From off the airship stepped a pair of older teens, one boy and one girl, with dark green hair. They both had some notable bruising.

"What happened to them?" Eda asked.

"I don't know," Alador declared. "They were like that when I picked them up from the Conformatorium."

"Did you just say that Mom has a tracking spell on Mittens?" the girl asked.

"She could have found her at any time?" The boy asked.

The twins both seemed to be quite nettled.

"Well, yes, and... I suppose," Alador said as gears visibly turned in his head. "I'll talk to your mother about this when we get home. But first," he said as he turned back to Eda, "where is my daughter?"

"Sent her off with my apprentice to enjoy nature," Eda replied. "Now I'm not gonna question your parenting but how often does she get to act her own age? She got sucked into Luz's nonsense pretty quick last night."

Alador didn't answer, instead, he pulled out a device with an oracle crystal embedded in it and... Was that an abomination frame? That probably wasn't gonna be part of the Blight Industry product line.

"The tracking spell says she should be here, where is she?"

Then something clicked in Eda's mind.

"Oh," she began. "The tracking spell isn't for Boots, it's for this," she said while taking the youngest Blight child's necklace out of her pocket. "I thought it was weird that an abomination tracker would have an oracle focus so I nicked it to take a peak... One way long-distance telepathic communication. One way long-distance emotional influence, remote memory reactivation. It got me a bit suspicious," Eda lectured, "So reluctantly I did some reading: enchantments very similar to this were used on collars meant to keep slaves in line in the early savage ages and were outlawed in the early Deadwardian era for exactly that reason. And that wasn't enough, the look on her face when she realized I had it confirmed it."

"...Odalia said it was for giving Mittens instructions when she helped with product demonstrations."

"Yeah, the one-way communication works for that," Eda acknowledged, "but the other stuff? Complex spell interactions there, making someone feel bad on command when talking to them and making them relive every other time you used it for that? That's only good for uh... What's it called again? You, Blight Boy, do you know?" She finished with a point at the twin in question.

"Uh, berating someone?" The boy answered.

"Ooh, close but not quite," Eda continued, "The answer I was looking for was 'abuse.' Something like this is only good for emotional abuse. Oh, shoot, I guess I am questioning your parenting. My bad." Eda's voice dripped with sarcasm on that line. "So maybe instead of criticizing me for bringing Boots up here, you should be wondering why she didn't feel safe at home after they," another gesture to the twins, "publically humiliated her."

Alador didn't respond.

Eda looked at the sky again. It was getting pretty late. "Now, I was about to go find the kids. You can come with me, see that she's safe, but I'm warning you right now if she doesn't want to go home with you I'm not going to make her."

TLOA

"...And that's what happened," Luz finished as she carried Amity on her back, dragging a stick through the snow behind them. "Oh, and King wrecked your friend Boscha's clubhouse while wearing my face so that's gonna be fun to deal with at Hexside."

"So wait," Amity asked, "Lilth can just.. Force people into the Emperor's Coven? Has a branding glove for the sigil and everything, and... But we're told that it's such an honor to join, people compete to join, why would she even need the authority to press-gang someone and... And when everything came together in that fight at the end, one of the Coven Scouts grabbed the glove and forced one on you?"

"That is what I just said," Luz replied with a laugh.

"Why?"

"I don't know," Luz said. She would have shrugged but didn't want to jostle Amity. "Maybe he thought my shadow powers were some kind of wild magic and forgot that the EC sigil doesn't seal magic away? All I know is that the brawl came to a dead stop when I screamed and Lilith and some guy named Steve started berating the scout that did it."

"Are you alright?" Amity asked.

"Yeah," Luz, "even if the Sigil sealed magic away I don't have a bile sack so there's nothing to seal. The glyphs still work fine, my powers still work fine."

"...How does it feel?"

"It hurt. A lot," Luz replied. "But the pain faded after a few minutes. Now it just itches. All the time. Are they supposed to itch?"

"I dunno," Amity admitted.

"Aa~nnd drop!" Luz declared as she set Amity down inside a small cave that wasn't that far from where they landed. It'd make a decent enough shelter. "Okay, we're going to need a fire given how long we might be here for and how cold it is, but I never learned the trick for starting one without matches. Do you think you're up for casting the fire spell one more time?"

"Yeah," Amity agreed, "I can get it one more time."

"Okay, I'm gonna grab some more fallen branches for firewood, I'll be right back," Luz declared and marched back into the snow.

It didn't take long, the valley they'd landed in was tree-covered and Luz was able to get plenty of firewood and it also got her far enough away from Amity that the witch couldn't hear Luz berate herself.

"¿Cómo he podido ser tan estúpido? Ahora estamos varados y todo es culpa mía... Keep it together, Luz If you panic, she'll panic."

After that, she brought the wood back to the cave and carefully assembled a crude campfire-type structure for the sake of burning, which Amity ignited and soon they had a pretty pinkish-purple fire keeping them warm.

"...So is there a reason your fire is that color?" Luz asked. "You're using the same spell as Eda and her fire is normal fire colored."

Amity shrugged. "No clue."

That was disappointing, but Luz was distracted by the other girl's shivering. 'Luz, you fool,' she thought to herself, 'you left her sitting alone in a cold cave after pulling her out of a snow bank.'

Luckily, Luz had something to help with that. Her thermos of coffee should still be hot.

After checking, she poured some into the lid/cup and handed it to Amity. "Here, this should warm you up some."

Amity took the cup but looked at it hesitatingly. "Ummm..."

"It's best to take it in one long swig," Luz explained helpfully.

Amity took a deep breath. "If this kills me, tell Emira and Edric that I used my last breath to curse their names." She then, true to Luz's advice, downed the whole cup in one go.

The expression of pure disgust on her face would have been funny in any other situation. She actually went a little green.

"You actually like that?" she asked while handing the cup back.

"'Like' is a strong word," Luz replied. "I mostly drink it when I know I need to focus on something and avoid distractions. Self-medicating, I'd rather take a bunch of caffeine than... Like, the Venn diagram of drugs for ADHD and hard drugs is a circle, I would really rather not go on those if I don't have to. And coffee is something of an acquired taste, to begin with, so... You sort of get used to it, but yeah... You should have tasted what I came up with when I first started though. That was definitely bad to the last drop."

"No thank you," Was Amity's very quick reply. "You know, I think most people put some kind of cream in bitt—coffee."

"Can't do that," Luz admitted. "Severely lactose intolerant. And the non-dairy stuff just tastes funky to me."

"...so what do we do now?" Amity asked as a topic changer.

"Rule 1 for when you're lost in the wilderness is to find shelter near where you got lost and wait for rescue," Luz explained. "And we did that... Rule 2 is like, mostly about how to survive if you're stranded long term, how long you can go without food and water and that kind of thing..." It occurred to Lz that she didn't know how long witches could go without food or water. "But that's not gonna be a problem because when Eda realizes that we're not coming back she's gonna come looking for us, see the crack in the ice, and figure out what happened. My second day on the island she tracked me down pretty fast after I got conned by a puppet demon so once she knows there's a problem she'll find us ASAP."

"You got conned by a puppet demon?"

"Yeah, he posed as a wizard and said I was a chosen one," Luz admitted. "I'd just gotten to the demon realm the night before and didn't know that wizards here are just weird old men and... I had a naive fantasy of things playing out like they did for Azura."

"That's..."

"Dumb, I know," Luz admitted, "especially since I know that real magic isn't like a fantasy novel but..."

"I was going to say endearing," Amity admitted. "Most kids our age are too caught up in drama or too obsessed with status or Penstagram clout or too busy planning their futures to just, you know, be a kid. Maybe it was foolish but there's just something charming about being willing to believe in childish fantasies. I wish I were that confident."

Luz giggled. "You going soft on me, Blight?"

"Maybe I want to be soft," Amity replied rhetorically. "I've been awful to a lot of people and I hate it. I haven't been happy since I was a little kid. Not until... Not until I met you. Maybe... Maybe this, this... Maybe I deserved to have all my secrets exposed."

"No one deserves that," Luz insisted. "Ed and Em said that they were doing a light prank to make you lighten up but that, that's not a light prank. That's... I don't know what that is but nothing you could have possibly done to anyone justifies that!"

"You don't know all I've done..." Amity replied. "I've had to do things I hate doing so that I wouldn't look weak or damage the reputation of the Blight family. If my reputation is already ruined, maybe no one will care and I can just be the kind of person I want to be."

"There's a saying back on Earth: Every cloud has a silver lining," Luz started. "I have no idea where it comes from or how it relates to what it's supposed to mean, but it means that there's always an upside to every situation. So if you wanna have my kind of confidence, looking for the silver lining here is a good start. So, what kind of person do you want to be?"

Amity laid back on the cave floor. "I don't know. My whole life was basically planned out for me without anyone ever asking my input. I guess I can start with... Being nicer to people."

Luz moved to lie next to her. "That's always a good place to start."

"And maybe keeping my hair down," Amity added. "Mom always made me wear it up but I think I prefer it down. What about you?"

"You do look pretty good with your hair down," Luz admitted.

Amity's face became akin to a tomato for some reason. She was a very blushy person. "I meant, the kind of person you want to be."

Luz went silent for a moment. "Other than a witch?"

"Well, yeah."

"No clue," Luz admitted. "Being an author is something I've wanted to do since I was a kid but recent experiences have kind of soured me on it. Kind of wanted to be an artist ever since I was a kid tracing panels of Fullmetal Alchemist, but everyone who can hold a pen straight thinks they can be an artist. Every kid wants to be a superhero at some point and I do like helping people but it's... Dangerous."

"Since when do you care about danger?" Amity asked. "I mean, after everything you've done."

"Not dangerous for me," Luz corrected, "the friends and family of superheroes sometimes get... Targeted, by supervillains. Or regular criminals. Or crooked government types. They've cracked down on it really hard ever since May's Law got passed but it still happens and I don't think I could live with myself if Mom, Eda, or anyone else got Gwen Stacied because of me."

Amity sat up. "Okay, you made a couple of references there that you're going to have to explain to me."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. They're uh, two big deal incidents of what I'm talking about with supervillains attacking a hero's loved ones and, proving my point, they both happened to the same guy." Luz sat up and cleared her throat. "Now, I don't know all the details because both of these things happened before I was born and I mostly pay attention to the magic heroes but... So there's this hero called Spider-Man because his powers are that he can do whatever a spider can... Actually, there are a lot of spider-men, and spider-women, a couple spider-girls, a few other spider-persons, and a spider-boy, but... This was the OG."

"Okay," Amity acknowledged.

"The first to happen was... Well, when we're learning about modern superheroes in social studies one of the first things they teach you about, after the initial appearances, is The Night Gwen Stacy Died." Luz took a deep breath. This was always an upsetting story. "Spider-Man had an arch-nemesis, the original Green Goblin... Uh, he's not a real goblin, that's just a name," Luz clarified. "One day, the Goblin kidnapped a woman named Gwen Stacy and took her to the George Washington Bridge in New York City and threatened her life unless Spider-Man retired and... Well, heroes don't tend to respond to hostage situations by just abandoning the hostages. Spider-Man tried to rescue her, but couldn't get to her before the Goblin tossed her off the bridge."

"And she..." Amity smacked her hands together.

"No, that's the messed up part," Luz continued. "Spider-Man tried to rescue her by stopping the fall with his web-lines and got her by the ankles and the sudden stop..." Luz pulled one of her fingers back to crack her knuckle.

"Oh my Titan," Amity quietly exclaimed.

"Yeah. Nobody wants to be in that situation and... What happened next isn't something we really have details on. By the end of the night, the Green Goblin was dead, impaled on his own weapons, and nobody saw Spider-Man for like a month," Luz continued. She tried to breeze through the gorier details. "But the thing is, nobody really understood why. The only connection between Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy was that Spider-Man was wanted for questioning in the death of Captain George Stacy. Nobody thought he did it, but the police wanted his side of the story and New York Police are pretty bad about being too aggressive but... Anyway, we got the answer years later."

"See, there was this incident called the Superhero Civil War. There was this really strict set of laws being debated that were collectively called the Superhuman Registration Act and the superhero community was sort of split on it," Luz continued. "Spider-Man was originally on the pro-registration side and he unmasked himself on live television to show his support, revealing himself as Peter Parker, teacher, photojournalist, and doctor of biochemical engineering and research... Who, incidentally, supported himself through college by taking pictures of Spider-Man and selling them to a Newspaper whose editor hated Spider-Man." That made Amity laugh. "But it also made people go back through Spider-Man's history, ask him questions, and the like... Gwen Stacy was his first girlfriend. She was killed just to make him hurt."

"And May's Law?"

"When Peter Parker took off his mask, it meant that some of his other enemies knew who he was," Luz continued. "This old school crime boss sent an assassin who shot and killed his elderly Aunt May Parker. That basically killed the SRA all the way dead when people realized the potential consequences... Also, some people looked more closely at it and it was like, enforcing it would require breaking a whole bunch of other laws and committing a few human rights violations. One of the senators who proposed it turned out to be possessed by a devil who was trying to force Spider-Man to sell his marriage."

Amity blinked. "What?"

"I know, devils are like, really petty," Luz agreed. "And this guy was a complete loser. Was ranting about how Spider-Man was more relatable when he was single when he got exorcised. Anyway," Luz continued, "Everything got sorted out, the big-name heroes on both sides of the conflict took sabbaticals to get their heads on straight, everyone was glad that the Civil War didn't escalate to violence, and May's Law got passed: It puts strict and harsh penalties on anyone who deliberately goes after a Superhero's friends and family but... There's a reason why the Parker kids quite famously go to the Jean Grey Institute and not a public school and it's not just because their dad teaches there."

"...I don't know what that is," Amity admitted.

"Hexside for mutant kids," Luz explained. "And a few other super kids, but mostly it's mutants."

"Okay."

"So like, I could be a Superhero now. Once I figure out what my powers are and how they work, and I like the idea of going out there and fighting the good fight and helping people in need but..." Luz trailed off.

"You don't want to put the people you care about at risk," Amity finished.

It was then that the girls noticed it was starting to get dark. Luz drew a couple of light glyphs so they'd be able to see properly when night fell.

"Eda should be getting here soon," Luz said aloud. She wasn't sure if she was reassuring Amity or herself.

"What if she doesn't?" Amity asked.

"She will," Luz insisted.

"But if she doesn't?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Luz deflected.

Amity looked down. "If... If she doesn't find us, or if something else happens while we're out here and... I don't—"

"Amity, don't talk like that," Luz warned.

"Luz, planning for the worst-case scenario keeps me calm," Amity admitted with a cracked voice. It was then that Luz noticed the fear coming off of Amity, she'd been caught up in her own nerves about this situation that... She felt stupid.

"Okay."

"If I don't make it out of this, tell Willow that... Tell her that she was never too weak to be my friend, I was too weak for her, and that I'm sorry. For everything."

"Alright," Luz agreed. "But, it's not gonna come to that. You'll be able to tell her yourself."

"I know," Amity admitted, "but I just wanted to have a plan in case—"

It was then that the wind picked up outside, blowing snow everywhere.

"Something like that happens," Amity finished awkwardly.

"This is fine," Luz insisted.

Then the wind shifted, and a gale of ice-cold air blew into the cave with them.

On instinct, Luz threw herself in front of Amity and held the witch close and tight.

The sudden windstorm didn't last long, which was good. The bad news, however, was that it blew out the fire.

"This is fine," Luz repeated. "I can go out and get more wood and..."

"I don't think I can cast any more spells today," Amity admitted.

"We'll figure something out," Luz insisted. She looked out of the opening of the cave. Night had fallen during the windstorm. That was fine. The light spells she'd cast were still going, she could draw another light glyph to light her way outside.

Luz got up, drew the glyph, and handed the thermos to Amity. "I'm heading out, but the storm might have buried any sticks or branches I could have used for firewood so I could be a while. If you get too cold, drink more of the coffee."

Luz marched back out into the snow and did her best to find enough wood for a new fire. She succeeded, but it took a long time. She looked up at the sky, hoping to catch any sign of Eda about to swoop in on Owlbert.

No sign of her cool mentor, but something about the twinkling of the stars caught her eye.

"No way..." In the sky, formed as a constellation, was the Light Glyph. Was that what? She scanned the sky for any others, but there was just the one glyph. "Still, if the ancient wild witches learned magic from the Isles then... The glyphs are found in nature!"

Luz, maybe a bit too excited, dragged the wood she'd managed to find back to the cave. Amity was a little jittery.

"How you holding up?" Luz asked.

"Fine. fine fine fine. Perfectly fine, fine as can be. I can't feel my legs. You have pretty eyes, do you wanna go—"

"Okay, two cups of my special brew is too much for you, noted," Luz quipped. "Hope I didn't get you addicted or anything."

Okay, build the fire, then figure out how to light it. Luz set down the sticks she'd found and looked closer at the pile of ash and charred wood that had been their first fire and... Wait.

In the ashes, dragged out when a stick was blown out by the wind, was...

Luz pulled out her phone, snapped a picture of the pattern, and copied it on her sketchpad.

After building the fire, she slapped the new drawing on it and activated the glyph, which caused the whole thing to quickly ignite.

"Second spell!" she declared proudly.

"Woo!" Amity exclaimed from behind her. "We're gonna, we're gonna be in the same classes then, huh? Not, not that that means anything changes... Hey we have this dance at Hexside next semester and—"

"Amity, breathe," Luz interrupted. "I know that it feels like you have endless energy right now but caffeine is a tenuous high. You're gonna crash soon so you need to conserve your energy."

Luz then looked at a spare stick she hadn't been able to fit into the bundle she'd made for the second fire, and got an idea. She grabbed it and walked back out into the snow.

TLOA

"She's safe, is she?" Alador Blight asked with a glare as the lights from Edalyn's spells illuminated the massive hole in the ice and snow that someone or something had clearly fallen through.

"We don't know that this was them!" Edalyn defended. "It could have been a really fat manticor for all we know."

"Edalyn, if anything has happened to Mittens while you were watching her, the Emperor's Coven will be the least of your concerns," Alador threatened.

"When was the last time you talked to her?" Edalyn asked and Alador tried to focus more on the fact that she was missing than on how much of a punch to the bile sack that question was.

Off in the distance, a massive fireball erupted into the sky.

"Well," Edalyn deadpanned, "that's probably my apprentice."

Twenty minutes later, everyone, Mittens and Edalyn's apprentice included, was on the Blight airship heading back to Bonesborough. The twins had Mittens in a crushing hug while alternating between apologizing for the stunt with her diary and expressing relief and gratitude that she was more or less okay while the human girl stood awkwardly a little bit away from them.

Alador, however, was primarily focused on the makeshift splint around Mittens' leg. He glared at Edalyn.

"Fine," the wild witch muttered. "I'm a big enough witch to own it when I screw up, should have kept an eye on them. That doesn't undermine anything we talked about earlier, you'd better shape up at home." Eda said while gazing at Alador's children. "If she comes to my door looking for a safe place to hide again, then not only am I keeping her, I'll rat you out about the necklace. Don't know if Emperor Bonehead actually cares about things that were outlawed before he came to power but you need to mix illusion and oracle magic to pull that off and we all know how he feels about that."

"You'd take that risk?"

"If I know my sister," Edalyn countered, "she's so desperate for any kind of approval that she'd leap at the chance to get the praise that would come from rescuing a poor kid from a bad home. And if she ever gave half a dang about Boots she'll be quick to do anything to get her approval back, too."

"Lilith did ask us if we'd object if she bought Mittens a snake-pony not long after the covention," Alador admitted. "We turned her down, of course, but..."

"Well isn't that just classic Lilly," Eda said with a laugh. "Make a mistake and then try to 'fix it' without ever actually owning up. Anyway, Boots looks like she can't decide if she wants to bite your other kid's heads off or just give in and let them hug her so we should probably..."

The two adults approached the children just as familial affection won out over anger. Amity relaxed and said, "It's going to take a lot before I can ever trust you again."

"We'll do anything to make it up to you," Emira declared, Edric nodding along.

They finally let go of Mittens after that, and Alador's youngest looked up at him. He couldn't get over how tired she looked, despite how... Wired she'd been when they found her. What happened?

"I'm in a lot of trouble, aren't I?" She asked.

"...No," he declared. "I'm very concerned that you didn't feel safe to come home after the incident at school, but that's a talk for your mother and I. I'm just glad you're safe." It hurt that she looked genuinely surprised at that. "Once we get home, we'll get your leg looked at and get you something to eat... Do you still like pizza bagels?"

"The demon realm has pizza bagels!?" the human girl questioned.

This prompted Mittens to laugh and look at the human and... Huh. That's the way Alador himself used to look at Odalia before it became all about the business.

"Uh," Mittens then said while looking at Edalyn. "Miss Eda, if, if I'm going home I need my necklace back."

"No," Alador declared. "You won't be wearing that thing ever again."

If Mittens had been surprised at not being in trouble, now she was shocked. She suddenly looked nervously at the other occupants of the airship.

Edalyn, for her part, pulled the confused-looking human asside and started praising her. "You did good kid, you kept your head on in a crisis, made the connection with nature, and learned your second spell. First thing in the morning I'm gonna teach you about money laundering." That seemed to distract the girl.

Alador looked back to Mitten. "Like I said, when we get home I'm going to have a long talk with your mother."