Chapter Text
~🐱~
Luz had been born with words on the inside of her wrist, and that was all she could really say about that. Birthmarks were normal, of course, and her mother had several so there was no surprise she’d end up with some as well, but words? Actual text?
That was weird.
Then again, everything about Luz was weird, even the things she couldn’t control. Her eyes were just a touch too big, her mouth just a bit too curved, her ears just a bit too round. That should’ve been a clue, she thinks, to her mother of what was to come in the raising of her little girl.
It wasn’t even like the words were vague, or just a trick of the light. They were real, written clearly in small, looped handwriting that neither herself nor her mother ever had a chance of replicating.
Well then, if that’s settled, may I have this dance?
If they lived in older times Luz has no doubt she would’ve been referred to with the word “witch” long before she ever set foot in the Boiling Isles, (other words like ‘changeling’ and ‘fae-touched’ come to mind as well) but alas, those names had fallen out of fashion and so the ones she was subjected to were much harsher. Weirdo, freak of nature, faker, attention-seeker, she’d heard them all. The only defence she had was to cover the godforsaken mark, but even then it wasn’t like it changed much. They lived in a small town, people weren’t going to forget something like that just because it was out of sight.
So she leaned into it.
If she was going to be the weird kid because of things she couldn’t control, she might as well make it because of what she could. Besides, it was freeing, in a way. There’s never any pressure to fit in if you don’t in the first place.
Luz never wanted to be a bad kid, and all things considered, she wasn’t. She never explicitly broke the rules, just did things that caused new ones to be written. Her grades were fine, if only because her teachers were terrified of having to put up with another year of her in their class. And sure, maybe she didn’t have friends, but who needed them? All that kids her age ever did was laugh at her, she didn’t want that, even if she was laughing with them instead.
It was the perfect armour, combat her natural weirdness with one that no one could ignore, one that eclipsed the other. People forgot all about the words, if only because they were too focused on her actions.
~
Luz has been in the Boiling Isles for little over a week before she notices something on Eda’s arm.
In her defence, there is just so much to look at, not even in the Owl House alone, so forgive her if inspecting Eda’s arms wasn’t her first priority. They’re pale, covered in faded scars that range all the way from her shoulders to her wrists. A patchwork of past exhibitions and adventures gone both wrong and right. She’s sure there’s a story behind each and every one, but that’s not what draws her eyes. It’s the letters printed on her wrist in stark black lines.
“What’s that?” she asks before she can stop herself and Eda looks up from where she’d been staring into her Appleblood groggily.
“Huh?”
“That.” Luz points to the words on her wrist and Eda just stares at Luz like she asked her what 2+2 means.
“A soulmark…?” She says slowly.
“A… what…?” Luz breathes the words with a weight that she can feel pressing down on her shoulders. That can’t mean what she thinks it means, can it? There’s no way that she’s that lucky, she’s never been lucky before in her entire life.
Now Eda’s brows rise, surprise evident in her expression.
“You… don’t know what a soulmark is, do you?”
When she shakes her head, Eda lets out something halfway between an exasperated sigh and a laugh.
“I guess they don’t have those in the human world, huh?”
She launches into an explanation that spans the better part of an hour and goes off on tangents more often than not, but Luz gets the gist of it:
Every witchling is born with words inscribed in one of their wrists, and the words will be said at some point by the most important person in their life-- “We call them soulmates, but that’s not really the best term for it. Not everyone’s marks match each other, and the term soulmate implies that all matches are friendly, which they aren’t.”-- once said, the marks will change colour to match the speaker’s eyes. The marks come in various ways and various moments, sometimes they’re the first words that are spoken to each other, sometimes just important ones, but they are there to imply a connection. As far as witches are concerned they’ve existed since the beginning of time and aren’t going away any time soon.
“Any questions?” Eda finishes, taking a long sip from her mug.
Luz sits there for a moment, quiet for possibly the first time since she got to the Isles.
“...do they only show up on witches?” She asks finally, trying to ignore the way her voice shakes.
Eda blinks and glances out the kitchen window for a long, thoughtful moment.
“I’ve only ever heard of them on witches, and if you don’t have them in the human world, I don’t see why they would show up on anything else.”
The words on her wrist burn.
“Interesting.”
~🐰~
Just like all Witches, Amity was born with words on her wrist.
Unlike all Witches, her words said:
I’m not a witch. But I’m training hard to be one.
What the everloving fuck did that mean?
There were a variety of species on the boiling isles, of course, and many of them were sentient and/or intelligent, but as far as anyone knew none of them could carry a soulmark. And even if you ignored the first part of that phrase, the second was just as confusing.
But I’m training hard to be one.
You don’t just train to be a witch. Yes, being a witch did require training, of that she was infinitely familiar, but training was useless without a biological component. If one didn’t have magic bile, there was no way to do magic.
During her younger years her parents had spent countless hours and numerous resources trying to figure it out, but eventually came to the conclusion that the words were meaningless. Wrong. Out of context at the very least.
The moment she was old enough to walk and talk and go out in public she’d been trained to wear a wrist covering at all times. No one could know that a Blight, even the youngest Blight whose only inheritance would be the renown of the name itself, was flawed.
That much she’d understood.
Still, as the years went by and she watched more and more of her peers meet someone whose words changed colour, she couldn’t help but feel a growing pang in her chest. Words were meant to be shared, that was part of the reason for them being printed on the skin in the first place. It was a sign, a way to show a connection.
It was what kept them…
Mortal, really.
And, sure, maybe Amity was a Blight, and maybe the closest thing she’d ever had a to a real relationship had been chewed up and spat out by her stupid family reputation. Maybe the words were the way of the universe telling her that her soulmate wasn’t a real soulmate, just a pet or a companion. Maybe Amity was born to be alone.
But that didn’t change that it hurt.
Ed and Em had words, printed on opposite wrists in roughly scrawled script like the writers didn’t have the patience to shape each letter properly.
Skara and Boscha had words, each written in the same flowering script they’d been taught by their family tutors when they were young.
Even Willow had words, written in simple neat handwriting that Amity had been unable to recognise as a child and, even now, couldn’t quite pinpoint to any one group or individual.
Amity had words, but every day she saw them she couldn’t help but wonder if they really meant anything. The handwriting seemed to change day-to-day even if the words didn’t, and when she took off her wrist-cover at the end of each day she couldn’t help but think they were mocking her in her misery.
Her loneliness only grew sharper with time.
~
Needless to say, Amity’s first impressions of Luz hadn’t exactly been in the Human’s favour. For one, she’d essentially helped her ex-childhood friend embarrass her in front of a teacher vital to her academic growth and gotten her ‘top-student’ badge revoked. For another, she’d been challenged to a Witch’s duel against a person who, as far as she could tell, couldn’t even do magic.
If Luz had just been a friend of Willow’s who got overzealous, that was one thing. The fact that she was apparently completely stupid was another.
The oath had been more to humour her than anything else. There was nothing for her to lose really, even if by some miracle Luz did end up beating her (doubtful) what was an apology in the grand scheme of things? And when she did win, what would Luz lose? Her pride? Her ‘magic’ which was likely her mentor just humouring the poor girl?
If anything, she’d be doing her a favour. Better to find out now then get her dreams crushed when she learned it the hard way.
Unfortunately, or extremely fortunately depending on the way you looked at it, life almost never worked out the way that Amity expected it to.
~~~
“You lost! You cheated! Say it, say you’re not a Witch!” The green-haired girl shouted, shrouded in shadow, voice shaking with each accentuation of her words. The finger outstretched from her was a weapon pointed at the other girl in a desperate bid to keep her at bay.
“I’m not a Witch.” The Human replied, and her tone was calm. Her eyes downcast, her shoulders lowered in submission, but she didn’t retreat. Her legs bent, dropping herself to the floor in a movement performed by anyone else might’ve looked pleading, but rather than beg for forgiveness or lenience in her agreed-upon punishment, she pulled a pad of paper from her pocket.
The Witch froze, and for a moment only stared.
Then she sat across from the Human, trying to calm the sudden pounding in her chest.
The human drew a glyph, simple in shape and in power, before pressing a finger against the graphite. The paper crumpled, rising from its place in a small, warm ball of light. The human’s hands rose to cup beneath it, and in its radiance, she looked up at the witch and smiled a soft smile.
“But I’m training hard to be one.”
~~~
That answered some questions, at the very least.
~🐱~
Things happened so fast on the Boiling Isles that it was all Luz could do to keep up with it. One moment she was being trained by Eda and running around trying to complete some errands, the next she actually managed to make friends (and an enemy) for once in her life. Then the friends got her into hijinks, and she spent a day in Eda’s body, and suddenly the enemy was no longer an enemy but not quite a friend either. Then things changed again and it turned out the not-quite-friend was just a girl who was shy and insecure and actually really sweet under all that meanness.
Suddenly the not-quite-friend was a friend, and she was learning a new spell because she’d actually be going to Hexide and learning more magic, and things just kept happening: Potions Track, Detention Track, all the Tracks, friends and enemies and school and bullies and memories, a school dance that turned out to actually be a front for a gladiator battle against a demon that could turn into your worst nightmares. Luz knew that the Boiling Isles were crazy, but she never really thought it wouldn't have even given her a chance to breathe.
Then again, maybe it was better that way.
Because when she did breathe all she could think about was home, her mother still thinking she was off at some summer camp that she’d never even set foot in. Sure, the Boiling Isles felt more and more like home every day, but Luz wasn’t stupid. She knew the Isles were dangerous, that every day could be her last because that was just the nature of a place not built for humans.
She felt understood for the first time of her life in the Isles, but she could only stay here so long. Mami was expecting her back, more than that, she was expecting a calmer, less weird version of her back. If there was one thing she could say about the Boiling Isles for certain, it was that they were definitely not helping her get less weird, if anything they were probably making it worse.
Part of her fear was her mother finding out about the Isles, she knew that was true, but that was only part. The other part was that maybe she didn’t love her mom enough to go back.
~
The monster wrapped one of its goopy tendrils of darkness around the green-haired girl’s form and lifted her into the air.
“I’m sorry Luz,” she said and Luz could tell she meant it because despite the creature of literal nightmare staring her down she was looking at her.
“Amity, no, your fear!” Luz shouted and though the fear had been ready to choke her earlier, now it was firmly eclipsed by the guilt rising in her chest. The whole point of this was to make sure that Amity wouldn’t have to do this, to spare her the pain.
Grometheus changed. First, he rose in a giant mountain of black, warping and changing and carrying Amity with him as he let out a sound akin to a million nails on a chalkboard. Then all as once he shrank, slowly lowering Amity to the ground with him until there was only a small form standing there, just barely a few inches her dwarf.
“Who’s that..?” Luz couldn’t stop the question.
Neither Amity nor Grom spoke. Grom reached out with a single-- almost human-looking-- hand, and placed it inside Amity’s pocket, drawing it out with that strange pink note in its grasp. Luz watched Amity’s face flinch, the knowing look flicker in her eyes, then Grom took the note in both hands, tearing it in half. Both dropped to the ground and Amity’s head followed in defeat.
Grom fell away, apparently certain it had already won the battle. Amity took one of the halves of paper and held it close to her chest. Luz rushed forwards to grab the second.
Will you go to Grom with me?
Amity.
For some reason, Luz felt the air leave her lungs.
“You were afraid of getting rejected?” the words felt… strange to say aloud. Underwhelming perhaps, given the gravity of the situation. The look on Amity’s face, a mixture between resignation and lingering fear told her all that she needed to know. Grom only got part of the fear correct, just like it had for her.
Well, she could at least fix this part.
“Amity, it’s okay.” She offered her hand, “What if I went to Grom with you instead?”
It was like the clouds had parted overhead. A light shone inside of Amity’s eyes and she was already reaching for Luz’s outstretched hand before she was speaking.
“Really?”
Of course.
“That’s what friends do.”
Amity’s eyes closed and, though her smile stayed firmly in place, Luz could see just a bit of strain in it.
Grom chose that exact moment to make its presence known once more. It reared back it’s ugly head and roared, splitting itself into a long, many-legged creature with jaws twice the length of its body. Luz wasn’t sure whose fear that was, but it definitely wasn’t pleasant to look at.
“Well, then if that’s settled,” their hands had left each other momentarily, the surprise at Grom’s resurgence causing them to break apart. Now Amity offered her hand back to her and a smile was back on her lips, the strain nowhere to be found. “May I have this dance?”
Oh.