Chapter Text
“Come on, Luz! I bet whatever’s in the potion is just what you need to boost your magic training.”
“But you said Eda takes this every day. What if it’s medicine? Mami always says one of the worst things you can do is mess with someone else’s prescription!”
King snorted. “I have no idea what you just said, but It’s probably fine. Come on, just take it!”
Luz shook her head, worry gnawing at her chest.
Outside the wind picked up. Storms had always made Luz anxious, the thunder and lightning, and the power behind a good storm grated at her senses like a movie that was just a touch too loud, or the feeling of cotton snagged on her fingernail. It created an itch that Luz fought not to take out on her skin by scratching at it to distract herself.
Her fight with King certainly wasn’t making things easier.
Lightning flashed through the window and Luz jolted, then snapped.
“This is too risky, King. GIve me the bottle, I’m putting it back before Eda finds out and we all get in trouble.”
Luz made a grab for the potion but King growled and held it away from her.
“No! The sooner you master your stupid spell, the sooner we can get back to our lesson!”
Luz managed to grab the neck of the bottle but King held fast to the rest of it.
“Let go!”
“No, you let go!”
“King!”
“Luz-”
Crash!
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Her witch was tired.
Too tired to keep her bay, within the dark recess of her mind. The last of her strength had gone towards protecting the Aerie. For this the Owl could feel some respect. Her witch kept her in the dark, within her mind out of fear and resentment, but her witch always protected the Aerie. She kept her own safe with a strength independent of the Owl’s own, but just as vicious.
Her witch hated her, suppressed her, hid her away, but she and her Witch were not so different…
Tonight, something had changed. It itched away at the Owl’s senses.
There was a new scent in the Aerie. So many new things littered the nest…
The pup was still here. His scent was heavy in the halls of the Aerie, laced with pride, confidence, and contentment. Her witch thought the Owl could not see when she was locked away. Everything was fuzzy, there were splotches missing, but the Owl could see. The scent triggered a response within the Owl’s mind. A whisper of fondness, the memory of an angry, childish squeal. The pup was a part of the aerie, her witch’s hatchling.
The Owl crept through the halls of the aerie. Her ears were pricked, eyes focused. Rarely did she enjoy surfacing during the day, the harsh sunlight grated on her nocturnal senses, but the storm protected her eyes.
The new scent was something the Owl had not encountered before. Neither witch nor demon, but the Owl didn’t think it was a threat just yet.
Soft, warm. The new thing smelled like taking a nap in the sun, and something spicy. As the Owl cautiously traced the scent through the aerie, she fought back a sneeze.
Crash!
The Owl tensed, her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled back into a snarl. She raced toward the sound that had startled her and at last came to the source of the new smell.
The new thing screamed, as did the pup.
The owl’s ears pressed against her skull and she skittered back a few steps, startled.
The pup and the new thing clutched each other and scuttled backwards into a corner. The light from the storm highlighted their terrified faces.
The Owl kept to the shadows and inspected the new thing with the sharp eyes of a predator.
It’s face was round, with the wide eyes of a stray doe. Short wisps of fur framed its..her, face. She was only a bit bigger than the pup, with skinny, awkward limbs. One of her thin legs was bleeding, fresh and hot, glistening glass was stuck in the wound, though it did not seem fatal.
Oh.
Another hatchling.
Her witch had two hatchlings now. So many responsibilities, for such a wild, reckless thing.
If they were her witch’s hatchlings, the owl supposed they were her hatchlings too.
Which meant she needed to calm them, and tuck them away somewhere safe until her witch was rested enough to fight her way back to the surface.
The Owl crept closer.
The pup yelped and tried to put himself in front of his sister.
The owl backed up calmly.
There was a moment of quiet where there was nothing to be heard but the raging storm.
Then, the little she-hatchling gasped, and called out her witch’s name.
The owl was not her witch, but she crooned back all the same, hoping it would bring her hatchling comfort.
Her hatchling still seemed unsure, but she was no longer afraid. At least not of the owl.
A particularly loud roll of thunder sounded, and the she-hatchling yelped. She scrambled forward, limping slightly, and buried her face in the owl’s chest. The owl crooned again and narrowed her eyes at the storm which caused her youngest so much fear.
This room was too open. Too much risk of threats from all sides. The Owl could not properly keep an eye on her hatchlings like this.
She needed to get them to the nest.
The owl scooped up her youngest in one of her claws, careful of her wound, and picked up the pup by his scruff with her mouth. Both yelped in protest, but the Owl paid them no mind. Her witch giggled in her sleep, she knew their hatchlings were a dramatic pair, prone to trouble.
The door leading to her nest was thankfully open. It was an easy thing to plop her pup into the nest and place her youngest down more carefully in a patch of soft pelts and blankets.
Her pup chittered and complained in words that the Owl did not understand. She held him down and groomed him carefully until he settled. She used soft licks and careful claws to work the knots out of his fur until at last he fell asleep.
Once the more energetic of her hatchlings was settled, the Owl turned her attention to her wounded little one.
The she-hatchling was a little tense, but stretched out her leg obediently for the Owl to see. The Owl whined and attempted to lick at the wound, but her hatchling yelped loudly. The salty scent of hot tears filled the nest and the Owl whined again while her hatching cried for her witch.
The owl whined and scented at her wounded young. She could not heal her hatchling.
Her witch could heal the hatchling.
But her witch was still tired and weak…
An image flickered faintly in her mind of a glass vial, filled to the brim with burning liquid that would give her witch strength. It would boost her witch enough to rise to the surface, and then she could heal her young!
The Owl rose from the nest and sniffed around her witch’s quarters, following both her senses and her dim memories to a familiar drawer.
Curious to a fault, her youngest fledgling scrambled out of the nest in spite of her wound. She opened the drawer the Owl was pawing at and chittered in excitement at the sight of more of her mother’s potions.
The Owl did not want to leave. She hated being suppressed and shoved into the dark.
However when her wounded hatchling opened the vial and held it out, she did not hesitate to drink.
For all that her Witch fought and struggled against her for control they were not so different.
And her witch loved her hatchlings.
Even if she did not know it yet.
----------------------------------------------------
When Eda came to, she knew instantly from the ache in her bones and the burn at the back of her throat what had happened.
Stupid. Should have remembered to take a potion before I conked out.
Then the seriousness of the situation kicked in. There was a storm. There was no where for the Owl to go but to roam the house alone with-
Oh titan, the kids-!
“Eda!”
The owl witch was interrupted from her spiralling thoughts by the relieved shout of her young apprentice. The sound forced Eda to register that she was sitting on the ground by her nest. Luz was kneeling awkwardly on the ground with an empty bottle in her hand.
Eda had exactly three seconds to feel relieved that the ten year old was mostly unharmed, with no claw marks or chunks bitten out of her, before her heart picked back up again working up to a heart attack because luz was only mostly unharmed, with dozens of shards of glass sticking out of her leg!
“Luz! What happened! No, wait, story time later, I need to get my kit. Hold on-”
Eda tried to stand only to stagger, the pounding in her head worsening dramatically.
Luz cried out and tried to steady her, but the shock of the evening’s events had mostly left her by now, and she cried out as the glass shards in her leg were jostled.
“Shit, kid! Ugh, don’t, don’t repeat that. Fuck, I mean crap! Hold on!”
Eda straightened up and rubbed at her temple with a shaky hand. As she staggered out of her bedroom, she noticed that King was passed out in her nest, completely whole and unharmed.
This place is in better shape than it usually is after one of my ‘episodes’. Eda noticed as she made her way down to the living room.
Leaning against a dusty bookshelf littered with nicknacks was a duffel bag from the human world loaded with a mix of human first aid supplies and the magical equivalent.
For all that Eda presented human junk as a novelty at best, she had come to learn over the years that they had their uses.
Before she’d dropped out of Hexside, she’d been training to excel in the potions track.
No matter what bullshit Bump tries to spout about how the tracks aren’t mixed- Eda noted with wry amusement as she scales the stairs with her medkit in tow- Some things will always bleed into each other.
Back in the bedroom, luz thankfully hadn’t attempted to move from her spot on the floor.
And potioneers are almost always healers. This kid is pretty damn lucky she bothered to keep training myself in multiple tracks after she quit school out of spite.
“Alright sunshine, let's get you looked at.”
Eda unzipped her kit and pulled out the necessary supplies. Luz squeezed her eyes shut and extended her leg for treatment.
King slept on.
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Eda pulled the tweezers away from Luz’s leg as another roll of thunder sounded. Just as she predicted, another tremble wracked the kid’s body. Luz’s eyes were squeezed shut and even though the storm was clearly affecting her ability to stay still, she was clearly doing her best to be a real trooper while Eda carefully tiny shards of glass out of her legs with steady, practiced hands.
The shimmering shards made a high tinking sound as they went into a clear mason jar. The blood shone pink and rusty against the sides.
Eda felt a twinge of nostalgia, remembering the disaster that had been her first year living alone on the streets and at the edge of the woods. It had taken a lot of learning the hard way to get to where she was now, methodical, self-sustaining, and steady in the face of disaster where her younger self would have been all but green in the face.
Heh, and to think she’d sworn up and down she was still a big hot shot, even when she was sick off of foraged mushrooms and pond water.
“We’re almost done, kid.” Eda promised, wincing a bit as she wiped the blood off of Luz’s leg and examined the appendage closely to make sure she hadn’t missed any pieces. She disinfected the wound with a smooth, clear sterilizing salve, and covered up the wound with gauze and secured it with a medical wrap.
“Alright kiddo, that should do it. Don’t mess with the bandaging too much and I’ll check on it every day to make sure it doesn’t get infected. That means no more running around in the mud with King until the cuts seal up, okay?”
Luz looked disappointed at being told to take it easy but nodded in understanding anyways.
Eda yawned and stared enviously at King. He definitely had the right idea. Still…
“I’m gonna have to have a talk with that brat once he wakes up.” Eda muttered, straightening up with a wince at the popping of her joints.
“Please don’t be mad at King! I made him feel like I didn’t care about his demon lessons and he wanted to help me with my magic so that he could spend more time with me!”
“The road to many a misfortune was paved with good intentions, kid. I won’t be too rough on him, Titan knows I’m not a shining beacon of responsibility myself, but King’s actions could have gotten you seriously hurt if the Owlbeast had thought you were an intruder.”
Eda paused, and then grimaced. “Hell, I sound like my mother, ugh.”
Luz still looked worried, so Eda rolled her eyes and scooped the lanky ten year old up, ignoring her surprised yelp and plopping her gently into the nest.
Eda flopped down next to her and bundled up under a fluffy black blanket.
“Serious conversations later, brat. For now, lets sleep off the rest of this stupid storm.”
Luz looked confused for a moment, then relaxed and made herself comfy by the edge of the nest, manhandling King like a snoozy teddy bear.
Eda waited until she was sure luz was alseep before settling fully into the heavy limb of comfort.
“Sleep tight, Owlets” Eda murmured.
----------------------------------------------------
When Eda woke up, several hours later, It was to a hundred tiny balls of soft golden light drifting over the nest and a proud little apprentice grinning so brightly Eda felt the urge to squint.
“Well, what do you know. I’m proud of you, sunshine.”