The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

Amity awoke early the next morning, partly surprised at feeling warm and comforted before she recalled the previous day's events. After Amity had been lovingly bullied into accepting the Owl Lady's hospitality the household turned toward the wild witch's latest acquisitions from the human world.

Apprently, a not insignificant portion of the Owl Lady's income came from scavenging discarded goods from the human world and selling that which she didn't want or need for herself to collectors at the market on weekends or otherwise appealing to the niche interests in human memorabilia. Usually, she sent her Palisman to do it, but as Luz had been taking it out for ice cream (something Amity made note of for when she eventually had a Palisman of her own) The Owl Lady had gone herself and, being rather more obvious than a small owl, could not just rifle through the trash in the human world which lead to her going around further than normal and finding a dumpster full of books behind the human school.

Amity was, naturally, quite horrified that an institution of learning would so callously discard archives of knowledge but Luz said something about how they were probably getting new editions in the coming school year.

Either way, the Owl Lady was convinced that she could make a mint selling tomes on human history, human language, human science, and human math to the right buyers and so Amity had mentioned that the library had been having a bit of trouble justifying its acquisitions budget this year and would probably pay quite generously for such coveted knowledge of another realm.

The Owl Lady's eyes almost literally turned to snails and she marched out the door with a heavy sack of pilfered books and that left Amity alone with Luz and the little demon who had proclaimed himself King.

Much of the afternoon had been spent making arrangements for Amity to stay there, which ultimately amounted to rearranging the contents of Luz's room (Amity resisted the urge to call it a closet) and bringing in some spare blankets and sheets to make a pallet next to Luz's strange human sleep cocoon.

That established and after a surprisingly well-put-together dinner, once the Owl Lady returned, much of the evening was spent... Well, dressing up in animal-themed pajamas and binge-reading through Azura 5, alternating reading chapters aloud and making their best impressions of what they imagined the characters to sound like.

Just after finishing they turned in for bed and that brought Amity to the current situation.

Part of her wanted to just stay like this, warm and comfortable, forever, but she knew she had to get up and after a brief period of indulgence she opened her eyes. And felt the heat immediately rise to her face.

At some point in the night, she had turned in her sleep to face Luz, and Luz had in turn turned over and thrown an arm over Amity meaning that if anyone were to walk in on them at this moment...

Carefully, so as not to wake the human girl, Amity turned over so that she was facing upward and tried to wriggle out from under Luz's arm only for her increased wakefulness to make her aware of another problem. Namely, at some point in the night, the self-proclaimed King of Demons had climbed atop the two sleeping girls and was now sprawled out over them, periodically letting out a quiet "weh" as he snored.

Amity found that she couldn't move without disturbing the position of either the human or the demon and, not wanting to wake either, found herself attempting to shimmy out of bed while causing as little disruption to the position of her bedmates as possible.

Eventually, Amity was able to wriggle out from Luz's arm enough to sit up, though at this point King's position had shifted so that he was mostly on her lap. This was easy enough to deal with, as Amity could just pick him up and gently set the little guy down where she had been lying as she got up. Slowly she backed away from the scene only to freeze when King suddenly sat up. The small demon then crawled to all fours, stretched like a cat, circled around like a dog, buried himself into Luz's side, and went back to sleep.

Luz, for her part, reflexively pulled her now free arm tightly around King and mumbled "Hugs are nice" but didn't seem to wake up.

Amity then composed herself, allowed the heat to fade from her face, and made to leave when she noticed The Owl Lady standing at the doorway and the heat returned to her face in full force.

After quietly leaving the room and closing the door behind her, Amity turned to the wild witch and asked "How long were you...?"

"Long enough, Boots," The Owl Lady replied. "Now come on, your clothes are dry."

The only clothes Amity had brought with her were her Hexside uniform, given that she'd been at school when she decided to run away. The Owl Lady had not only washed it but also sewn up some tears she'd gotten while out in the woods.

"Thank you," she told the Owl Lady once she'd changed, only to realize she'd forgotten something. "Uh, I had a necklace that I took off and... Have you seen it?"

"You mean this?" The Owl Lady declared as she withdrew the necklace in question, a large pink crystal pendant on a black string. "I was gonna ask if you mind if I hold onto it for a bit? Some interesting spells on this thing."

Amity nearly panicked, if the Owl Lady knew what that necklace was then... But, the wild witch was powerful but she'd all but admitted that she'd dropped out of school yesterday. Would she even know enough to identify it? And wouldn't denying outright raise her suspicions? "Okay, that's fine I guess, just don't..."

"Relax, I'm not gonna break it," The Owl Lady assured as she pocketed the piece of jewelry again. "Now Luz usually doesn't get up for another half an hour so you just do... Whatever it is people do while I get to work on breakfast."

"Do you need any help?" Amity quickly offered. "I cook at home all the time."

"Huh, you'd think a rich girl would have servants for that," the Owl Lady mused. "No, it's fine."

"Anything at all I can do?" Amity pressed. "I don't want to be a burden."

"Boots, after that tip-off about the library you could clean out my fridge, back up my septic, and steal the crystal ball and I'd still be coming out ahead. It's fine," The Owl Lady insisted. "Just relax while I cook up some griffin egg omelets."

Amity looked around the general decor of the Owl House. "Aren't griffin eggs a bit expensi—"

"Shhh!" Interrupted the Owl Lady. "Humans can't digest most of the food on the Boiling Isles, so I make sure to have stuff I know Luz likes and can keep down. But... You have to have noticed by now how..." The owl lad waved her hand in a circular motion, "How she tends to take responsibility for things outside of her control, accept blame for things that aren't her fault... Heck, I'm pretty sure part of the reason she went after you that day was because she blamed herself for what Lilly did. If that kid knew that feeding her cost a bit more, she'd be so busy trying to 'pay me back' that she'd never get anything else done and the last thing I want is for that sweet girl to start thinking that she's a burden."

Amity blinked. "I never expected the infamous Owl Lady to be so motherly."

"You take that back," the wild witch in question quickly threatened.

A stirring sound from upstairs indicated that Luz was getting up a little early.

"Oh, darn," the wild witch acknowledged. "Look, if you want to make yourself useful, go through my closet and see if you can find a coat that fits, we're heading to the Knee after breakfast."

TLOA

Amity couldn't help but stare at Luz as the human girl practically bounced around, squealing about how beautiful the snowy landscapes of the Knee and the ruins that dotted them were.

"Everything here is so pretty!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah," Amity agreed while looking at the human who, thankfully, wasn't looking back at Amity at that moment. From the corner of her eye, however, Amity could see the Owl Lady rolling her own and blushed.

Eventually, they made their way to where the Owl Lady wished to make camp and, after setting up, the elder witch began to lecture.

"From what I've managed to scrounge up," she began, "the earliest witches learned magic by communing with the Boiling Isles themselves through the natural phenomena. Via the earth and sky, the moon and stars."

Amity didn't want to admit how skeptical she was of that story. Everyone knew that it was only Emperor Belos who could speak to the Titan and that wild magic like the Owl Lady was describing was using magic wrong, and that it angered the Titan, but she'd been shown undeserved kindness by the residents of the Owl House, especially in the last 24 hours, and this was almost certainly the only way that Luz could be a real witch instead of just another human sorcerer, so she held her tongue.

"Cool!" The human exclaimed, ignorant of the young witch's inner turmoil. "So how do I do that?"

"I have no idea," The Owl Lady admitted. "But I also know that ancient witches were drawn to the knee to study and practice magic and that, for some reason, the magic is strong and flowing here compared to other parts of the Titan's body. so I figure this is the best place to figure it out."

The Owl Lady then looked intently at Amity for a moment. "Hey, boots? You know how to conjure fire yet?"

"No," Amity admitted. It had been on her to-do list but...

The Owl Lady hummed. "Alright then, Luz, get out your... What's it called again, a phone?"

"Yeah," Luz replied while drawing out her weird human scroll thing.

"Okay, fire conjuring is a pretty basic spell," the Owl Lady began, "and it's a lot like the light spell, just a basic manifestation of a raw element without being overly biased toward one of the nine main spell phlegms that more specialized forms of magic are," she explained. "And since you learned a glyph to cast the light spell by recording the light spell, I'm gonna teach boots fire conjuring and you're gonna record it. Multiple castings, a few different attempts to get it right, multiple chances to catch the glyph. Any concerns or questions?"

Amity looked away. "I still need a training wand to learn spells like that."

"What's a training wand?" Luz asked.

"Pretty common tool," The Owl Lady explained. "Charge them up with magic and they do most of the work casting the spell for you, helps you get into the mindset and feel for a given spell without using up your own magic or worrying about the spell fizzling or blowing up in your face."

"Cool!" Luz exclaimed.

"And you," the wild witch said as she turned back to Amity, "don't look so ashamed. So what if you still need a training wand? It doesn't matter how you learned, it matters that you learned."

"I learned the states and capitals from a children's cartoon from the nineties," Luz chirped. She then started humming something rustic-sounding. Amity would have to ask why the human realm had multiple capitals later.

"I... I'm the only witch my age I know of that still needs a training wand," Amity defended. 'It's..."

"That doesn't matter. If you're learning you're learning," The Owl Lady insisted. "But now that I think about it, are sure you need a wand?"

Amity blinked. "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

The Owl Lady face palmed. "This is why I hate school. Okay, so at Hexside they mostly teach you the Emperor's Coven-approved theory of magic, which ties everything down into its own little box and makes it all very clinical, but magic isn't clinical, it's wild and chaotic and alive, and no one with any sense can argue with that given that it literally comes from the heart."

"I mean, the bile sack isn't technically part of the heart," Amity defended but... Laid out frankly like that she couldn't help but acknowledge that the Wild Witch had a point.

"My point is, our magic isn't just some thing you pick up and put down, it's part of us just as much as our flesh and blood are," The Owl Lady continued, "and that means that the way we feel about ourselves is part of what makes it work. You're not gonna get much constructive done if you're in a destructive mood, getting spells to work at all might be hard if you're sick and feel like crud, and if you don't think you can cast a spell then..."

"You can't," Amity realized.

"No judgment either way," The Owl Lady insisted, and Amity could tell that she meant it just as she could tell she could trust Luz, "if you really do need a training wand then there's no shame in it, but are you sure you haven't just convinced yourself that you still need one?" When Amity didn't answer, the Owl Lady continued, "Look, I'm gonna be demonstrating the fire-conjuring spell for Luz regardless, so I'm just asking... You wanna give it a try?"

"...Yes."