Chapter Text
It’s raining outside the hospital. It’s coming down in sheets. And… either Luz is crying, or she’s brought the rain in with her, too, because it pools on the floor, forms clouds on the ceiling, drowns out fluorescent lights.
“Oh, Luz… just look at that brave face…”
Manny looks like he’s using all his strength to smile. But he still looks like he means it, as he looks into Luz’s eyes, even wearily reaching for something under his pillow.
It’s all wrapped up in purple paper, but — but Luz knows what it is, doesn’t she? Oh, how could she not? She’s dreamed this dream, remembered this memory, so many times and times again — even last night, and the night before, and the night before.
She’s been dreaming since — since her return to the Isles, but — but why? It’s not even August. Why does she keep dreaming?
“Papá,” she whispers, “so much has changed, I — I wish you could be here, just to —”
Manny presses the gift into her arms. As he takes her hand, the wrapping paper falls away — and the pages of The Good Witch Azura shine, with a brilliant golden glow.
“As long as you remember me this way,” Manny says, voice deepening like rumbling thunder, as he closes his eyes, “then a part of me will always be within you, Luz.”
“Dad?! Dad, please, just hang on — just a minute —” The light surrounds Luz now, spilling out of her heart and her eyes. “Please, you — you haven’t even gotten to meet everyone —”
Her voice hitches, vision blurring, everything blurring. “You never — you never even got to meet King —”
With all the strength she has in her, she tightens her grip on his hand — and as she does, it changes, right between her fingers. Dark knuckle hair grows into long black fur, covering a paw with bony claws.
A paw that squeezes her one last time, steady and firm — and then, melts into fire that escaping her grasp, with nothing left to do but let go.
And Luz opens her eyes.
The familiarity of the Owl House blankets her. A few feet away, King is curled up in his bed, snoring peacefully — those snores where he starts out sounding like a tiny lawnmower, just to let out the softest little weh at the end, and repeat — those snores that Luz doesn’t know how she ever slept without. Maybe… maybe she should record some, before the Boiling Isles get a little more cleaned up — before they’ve got the portal running regularly, for more than just telling Vee that they’re okay, and before Luz goes back to sleeping in her own house…
But she doesn’t reach for her phone. Her arms feel heavy, and her hands… feel phantom handshakes. She stares at King, sleeping obliviously, with a window cracked open behind him — and in those window panes, the empty reflections feel like ghosts.
She scoots towards King, one inch at a time. Careful not to wake him — silent, like a slithering snake.
Somehow, the dream still feels like more than just a dream.
Oh, Papá, Luz thinks, as she closes her eyes again, and lays an arm over King, what is it that you’re trying to tell me?
*
“Keep your arm relaxed — yes, just like that, you’re a natural! And now, we count… three, two, one, poke —”
King totally doesn’t flinch, not even a little, and definitely not ‘cause he thought the pain would be worse than it really is, or anything. He really shoulda asked the Collector for portal help before they left, but he forgot just like everyone else did, and that’s the first bad news. The good news is that the Collector promised to visit lots, but the bad news is that King has no idea when. There’s a good old-fashioned way to make sure Luz and Mrs. Noceda aren’t stranded in either world in the meantime, and that’s more good news… but the last of the bad news is that to make it happen, King has to… erm, do some donating.
At least this time, he gets Mrs. Noceda showering him with praise, instead of the combined bedside manner of Hooty and Tinella Nosa — and he’ll take Luz’s Mom over the two of them any day, especially over Hooty. Small victories.
“It’s not so bad after that first pinch, is it? You’re being very brave,” Camila tells him, attaching the blood tube to the first of several vials — and King feels his blood pump faster, as he swells up with pride. That’s right — he is being very brave! He is a natural at getting poked, jabbed, and gouged! Finally, some proper recognition!
“Come on, that tiny sting? You know, I’ve survived being stung by actual fire bees before —” King brags, “— multiple times. So, I’m basically the bravest person on the Boiling Isles, except — oh, except for maybe Luz —”
“F-fire bees?” Camila chuckles nervously, but composes herself. “Goodness, maybe you should be the one to tell a story while we wait, and not me.” King must blink or something, because Camila adds: “Oh, see, when Luz needed her shots — or her allergy tests, as a kid — then Manny or I would always sit with her, and ‘make up’ a story about bravery, and heroism.” She shakes her head, smiling and laughing to herself. “Of course, Luz was… still too young to realize just how much we were ‘borrowing,’ from old episodes of Cosmic Frontier —”
“Ha! Fanfiction!” King laughs — focusing right on Camila’s smile, so he doesn’t have to look at the needle. Yeah, he’s being super brave — his arm’s only getting a little stiff, and the wait’s only driving him a little stir crazy — so he should just keep talking, right? About — about just whatever he’s thinking, like — you know, like a name he’s not sure he recognized —
“Um, sorry,” he says, “but… who’s Manny? Was he, like… your doctor, or…”
Crinkles form at the corners of Camila’s eyes. And — and she lowers her eyes, even though her smile stays put, at least mostly — and suddenly, King feels so, so stupid. He — he should — he should’ve known this —
“Manuel was the best paramedic in all of Connecticut. Even — especially for people who flipped their cars, on the way home from the same Cosmic Frontier convention,” Camila says, and… and she even laughs, a little. “But… he was Luz’s father. My husband. He’s no longer with us.”
“He’s — oh, Luz, she — she — flowers. I — I — I’m sorry —” King feels about like he’s barfing the words out. He remembers the day of the Bonesborough Brawl — and the way that Amity brought Luz home, for her to trudge inside, bags under her eyes and flower petals in her hair. The way that Luz had hugged him and Eda, told him and Eda — and the way he just hadn’t known what to say to her. He still doesn’t know what to say now! Grah, how are the Nocedas allowed to be so much better at comforting him?!
“Oh, mi cariño. It’s okay,” Camila whispers — and just like that, she’s proving his point. “You’re right — Luz and I, we like to remember him with flowers. But… in my heart, I know, that somewhere out there — somewhere, somehow, Manny knows that Luz found a place that makes her this happy. And — and even found people who make her so happy, like —”
Leaning over, she gives King a gentle scratch under the chin — right in the spot where he likes it. “Just like this guy here makes her. Do you know how much Luz talked about you, pequeño? About how fast you were growing up?”
King didn’t realize he’d been shaking, until suddenly, he stops — because, despite it all, he finds himself giggling and sniffling instead.
“Weh! That — that tickles! How can I keep my arm still, when — when you’re —”
“Oh, you’re all done now, sweetheart!” Camila says, winking — and wait a second, the needle is nowhere to be seen anymore! King didn’t even feel her take it out! And to think they say that humans can’t do magic! “Let me get you all sorted — I think we’ve even got some of those little magic bandages, from that nice griffon girl at Hexside —”
Holding a wad of gauze to his arm, she tapes it down with a blue bandage strip, and instantly, King feels healing magic get to work on his tiny new arm piercing. So much for a cool scar. But, then again… his fur would’ve hidden it anyway, and he’s already putting the Collector’s stickers all over his cool skull crack.
King sits up, flexing. It feels good — it feels like he’s still got all the blood he could need left inside of him.
Buried beneath all that blood, something tugs at his stomach, all fuzzy-nervous and guilty. He decides to ignore it. He gets to his feet — and those, at least, are nice and steady too. Good old reliable feet.
“Thanks, Mrs. Luz’s Mom!” he declares, and just for good measure, adds: “I feel like I could power a portal with my eyes closed right now—”
“Now, not if you forget to look after your blood sugar, you can’t. Er — do Titans still have that? Blood sugar” Camila blinks, rubbing her chin. “You know, with all these strange foods I can’t eat on the Boiling Isles, I don’t even know if this world has glucose — or if all your molecules are even the same chirality, because, you know, there was that planet in the Quantum arc — but, I think, you should still take this juice box I brought you, Okay?”
“You just said a lot of words I don’t know — but okay!” King holds out his hands for the box of apple blood. As he stabs it with the straw, Camila presses a kiss to his forehead — right in-between the stickers — and he blushes. “Okay, see you later!”
“You should eat a dinner with lots of iron in it! Probably!” she calls after him, as he takes off down the hallway — and he nods, making quick work of his juice.
“Weh!” Right now, his top priority is kisses from Eda and Luz, too — to complete the kiss-healing ritual — and he thinks he hears their voices from the kitchen. But as he gets closer, and the voices get clearer… something just tells him, he shouldn’t go in yet, not before he waits and listens from around the corner.
“Hey, Eda… you can do mindscape magic with potions, right? I mean, not like it’s, you know, easy, obviously —” The pitch of Luz’s voice creeps up as she speaks, just shy of breaking into a sheepish laugh, and it’s so easy for King to imagine that awkward smile on her face, or her hands on her hips, as she innocently sidles up to Eda. “But, you know — just hypothetically?”
There’s a clunk, like Eda setting down a pot or a pan. “Whoah, kid. Mind magic? Weren’t you just nose-deep in working on the portal yesterday?”
“Heh.” Luz’s shoes scuff against the floorboards. “Um, soooo… Hunter found a book for me, and it had notes about both. Dimension magic, and mind magic. So, I was planning to read about the portal, and making one that won’t take King’s blood every time, but… I guess I kinda got distracted, sorry…”
Eda snorts. “No, hey, that’s fine, kid! I’ve been saying you’ve been obsessed with that portal like a trash slug chasing a garbage yacht — and it wouldn’t even be for the first time! You gotta take the distractions as they come, Luz — and recharge all your beautiful brain goop!”
Eda proceeds to make a whole lot of goopy sound effects — which probably come with all kinds of visuals, rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue to get a muffled chuckle out of Luz — but only for a couple moments, before she snaps back to serious mode, in practically record time.
“And that all goes double when you’re not sleeping well,” she goes on, and definitely points a finger at Luz, no doubt about it. “Almost as if some crusty old bitch — pardon me, crusty old witch hunter, tried to kill us all last week — and if any of us said we were over it already, then we’d either be lying, or repressing…”
Eda trails off — like she noticed Luz start making a weird, sad face. Like Luz has been making a little too often, for a little too long, King thinks — even though Eda didn’t mention Luz dying, so — so it can’t be the weirdest face, or the saddest…
“…Eda,” Luz asks, with a hitch in her voice as she breaks the silence, “if you went into someone’s mindscape, could you… could you talk to a person who only still exists in their memories?”
A jolt runs down King’s spine. He twitches, pressing himself more tightly to the wall, and wrings his paws.
He really, really hopes Camila doesn’t walk down this way, and see him.
Poor Luz. Poor Camila. Poor Manny.
“Well, I’ve been wrong about bigger and badder stunts you’ve made work before,” Eda finally says, after a long pause, and lets that thought sink in for another few moments’ worth. “But… you gotta understand that the people in memories are… memories, and not people, for starters. So the chances they could break, from — from the pre-recorded track, and hold a real conversation, about anything more than what you remember ‘em saying, well…”
“That’s what I used to think. But — but my book —” Luz insists, “was saying there could be a way, because — the, uh, author even figured out — his Inner Self could speak through versions of himself in his memories, give them more life, make them say new things, even if he — um, if he — if couldn’t get the other people in his memory to change —”
“Huh. You don’t say.” Eda audibly raises an eyebrow, but — it’s more of a suspicious eyebrow than a curious one. “But still, let’s not leap to conclusions, here. That’s a pretty big difference, between when the Inner Self can jack into the matrix, and when it can’t…”
“I know, Eda.” Luz does sound like knows it. Heck, she sounds like everything that’s weird, and sad, and tired about her voice is coming from the fact that she knows it. “But… when it’s a memory of someone who’s already gone, then… then don’t I still have to try?”
King bolts down the hallway. Away from the kitchen, away from any more guilty eavesdropping, and towards the door of the Owl House itself. He only stops for a second, to grab his backpack off the ground, because — because he has to get out, because he — he — he has to —
He has to do what?
Memories, remembering — remembering someone — how to remember someone —
King doesn’t know anything about mind magic. Forget potions — he wouldn’t even know an Inner Self, if it smacked him upside the skull —
But… maybe, there’s one thing, just one thing, that King knows better than anyone —
Maybe, he knows exactly what he has to do for his sister.
*
“And hey, listen. I’m not against you trying,” Eda says — and even smiles at Luz, with a real spark of belief in her eyes. “I just don’t want you to set your whole heart on it — ‘cause it sounds like this book, wherever it was that you got it, was written by someone who was getting pretty desperate —”
“Heh. Um.” Luz forces herself to smile back, instead of wince, as she tugs at an unraveling string of her hoodie. “Um, yeah. Probably. And… trust me, I don’t want to follow in that person’s footsteps, but — but I want to think I’m doing this, I’m studying this magic, for a better reason than them?” She swallows. “Maybe… maybe even, just hypothetically — if they happened to be a bad person, then I might be doing this for a reason they’d hate —”
Thank goodness, Eda snorts, grin spreading from ear to ear. “Now that’s what I like to hear! You really gotta open up about this plan you’ve got —”
“Well.” Warmth rushes through Luz’s veins, with a surge of pride buzzing in the back of her head. “First, um — thanks, Eda. I needed to hear that. But, um… with the plan, I… I guess I haven’t given much thought to how to explain it…”
Luz takes a breath. It won’t just sound stupid, right? She trusts Eda to tell her if it does, but — but if it does, then she — she’ll have to go back to square one, and — keep dreaming, and —
“I think… I think I know something about mindscapes that — that the person in my book never realized?” she blurts out, before she can lose her nerve — and Eda raises an eyebrow, which gives her all the confidence she needs to keep going. “Because — you know, when there’s more than one person in the mindscape, more than just the Inner Self, then — then everything gets more complicated! When me and Amity went into Willow’s mind, we — we were able to see one of Amity’s memories, so — so if they could get mixed up, if they blur together, then — then —”
Luz stares into Eda’s eyes, waiting for the moment of recognition — and at first, Eda just looks back. “You know what I have to try, Eda. What — what I think my dreams have been trying to tell me.”
“And that is?” Eda asks, seemingly not knowing, and Luz looks down at herself — looks down at her body, resting her hand atop of her chest, feeling it rise and fall. Alive.
“I guess… I guess it’s a not-so-obvious answer, to a kind of obvious question. What happens in in a mindscape, where… where there only used to be two people?”
*
By the time that King walks back up the hill to the Owl House, the sun has practically sunk beneath the waves of the Boiling Sea. His good old, classic King shadow on the ground — which, at sunset, gets… just so much taller, and taller, and taller than he is, he just can’t help but notice, lately — now disappears into the dusk, fading without sunlight, and… geez, where did all of this day go, really? Maybe that’s just what King gets, for not getting Stringbean or Owlbert to drop him off, but… but… well, it just wouldn’t have worked out like that. Today was for bringing Luz a surprise — even if King had to use his stubby little legs.
He finds Luz in her bedroom, reading — with her phone light. ‘Cause, yeah, that’s just the whole thing, now — she doesn’t have her glyphs. But at least, as King gets a closer look, the book she that does have…
Oh. Actually does not inspire confidence.
The cover — of the book, or should King say, journal? — is stained. Blotches upon blotches of dark, muddy green — and King’s fur bristles just looking at it. He does not want this book in his room. He does not want this book with his sister. Absolutely terrible, intolerable vibes —
“Where were you today?” Luz asks, looking up innocently, as she not-so innocently flips to a different page. “Mamá said you took your juice box, and just skedaddled —”
King ignores her, setting his backpack down gingerly, at the foot of her sleeping bag. He trots up, and squeezes his head under her arm, facing the journal — and the page he sees is one with a drawing of not just a portal, but Belos’s portal. Painfully, obviously unmistakeable. He sighs.
“Oh, right. You said Hunter was the one who ‘found’ it for you.”
“Well,” Luz gets a strained smile, “technically, it was the CATTs that found it! I think — I think Hunter didn’t want it near him, so… he just talked them into lending it to me — look, Darius and Raine know I have it! They understand we need a better portal — one that uses way less of your blood, King, so — so they said, as long as I give it back when I’m done, then they’re okay with me having it! I mean, okay, I guess I —”
She frowns, admitting. “I guess I still don’t know how Eberwolf feels — I kind of have a hard time understanding them…”
Okay. There’s a frantic look in Luz’s eyes. Okay. But — but the CATTs approved? The CATTs approved, and they’re grown-ups — they think things through! They’re responsible! And they —
They don’t know Luz like King does — not how hard she’ll push herself, and push herself, and push herself, like King knows. And not — not — not even what Belos did to Luz. Like King knows.
Gah, who made King the one supposed to say something, or not say something, about any of this? Who’s making him decide? He’s not a responsible adult — no, he’s such a little kid, he doesn’t even know what a little kid he is, literally; he doesn’t know when Titans are supposed to grow up, and be mature, and start making the right decisions — because King has already been trying. He’s been trying, and everyone even acts like it’s working, and sure, he’s worried about Luz, but he also wants to trust her, and — and — and —
He sighs, and instead of pulling all his fur out and screaming, he admits:
“…I do like when my blood gets to stay inside of me.”
‘Cause, yeah, that’s typical Luz, right? Working herself to death, for something that would actually be… nice. And, like, honestly? Can King even imagine, a jab in the arm whenever anyone wanted to hop between worlds? Or just to get enough signal for human realm pet videos? No, thanks. Just because he would do anything — move mountains, and bleed rivers, to keep a portal open for his sister — doesn’t mean that he’s gotta be a masochist about it. As long as there’s another way. And that way doesn’t give Luz too many sleepless nights, or skipped meals, or terrible flashbacks, or…
Luz laughs. A little, quiet snort that escapes her nose.
“I do too, King. I do too.” She lifts the corner of the journal page, like she’s about to turn it — and then, she pauses. “I… should really be honest. I mean, the — the whole point is to explain eventually, right?” Another laugh, but this one… is it a little nervous? Is it a little guilty? King narrows his eyes.
“Hey,” he says, trying his best to sound like just the sweetest little demon, who is only using his powers of observation, and would never eavesdrop, “there sure are a lot of cat-themed bookmarks in that there journal, huh. And on way more than just the portal page, too. You know, I didn’t know ol’ Emperor Dead-los was into things that were cat-eared, or purple, or sparkly —”
“Okay,” Luz admits, corners of her mouth twitching a little — and she flips to a new, bookmarked page of the journal. It’s an illustration of… picture frames, hanging from trees? Unless… unless, those trees could be… could be part of…
“You’re right, King,” Luz says. “I’ve been — I’ve been reading more than just the portal diagrams — a lot more, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help it!” She thumbs one of the bookmarks. “Like — just like you noticed, from all of my emotional support kitties —”
“But why?” King blurts out — and he’s only half-surprised as Luz wraps her arms around him and pulls him close, running her fingers through the fur on his back.
“It — it started with just the portal. Really,” she says, and he believes her. “But I… I looked at everything he wrote, about his experiments — about coven-brands, and worse — and every day, I look outside, at what the Boiling Isles looks like now, and… I want, King, I really want, to do everything good that I can with his research? I want to use everything, everything, that he took from the Isles, that he took from you, and — and just find every way, every way I can, to give it back! In — in whatever way would make him the angriest —”
She’s being careful not to clutch King too hard — but with her other hand, she’s making a fist. And King can feel her shaking.
And, well. If there’s anything King believes, it’s that Luz is going to give back to the Isles. Heck, as if she hasn’t already — they’d all be dust without her! Ao if there was anyone, anyone, who could take apart any of Belos’s research, piece by piece, and turn it into something better — then of course, of course, it would be Luz —
But the thing about Luz is… the thing that King knows… there’s nothing Luz loves like doing incredible things, changing people’s lives… and then, telling herself that all of it’s not enough.
“…I also like pissing off Belos beyond his slimy grave,” King says, and as Luz lets out a gasp, at what’s totally the worst cuss word King knows, he gets up onto four legs. He circles around, facing her — and rests a paw on top of the journal.
“So, to do that,” he continues, “when are we recruiting the rest of the Isles to help?”
Luz blinks. Absolutely dumbfounded — and King throws his arms up in the air.
“You know what I wasn’t even looking for today? People tearing down statues of that guy, that’s what! But do you wanna know how many I saw? I can’t tell you, ‘cause I lost count! ‘Cause if — if you went and put up a sign, asking for people to come make Belos so mad that he’ll feel it in the afterlife —” King points a finger at her. “Then you know how many people would sign up? To — to undo the coven bindings, or — or plant palistrom trees? You’d get carnage! Stampedes! Claws that tear apart the sign-up sheets’ flesh!”
“Okay, I — yeah, okay. I can imagine —” Luz covers her mouth, not trying all that hard to hide her laugh — good. King needs to know she’s listening, not off in her own world of — of however she gets, when anyone mentions Belos.
“…Seriously,” he adds, voice almost giving out on him suddenly, why now? “Seriously, I — I mean it, Luz. Maybe — maybe we don’t put up a sign, exactly, but — but you — you don’t have to do it all on your own.”
Her eyes flit away from him — with obvious guilt, as they dart over the journal, over Belos’s words. She slides her fingers under the front cover, hesitating —
“And you… um.” Oh, come on. You can do this, King. Just tell her what’s true. “There’s — there’s nothing you have to make up for, okay? We always — we’re always gonna want you here.”
Luz shuts her eyes, and slams the journal closed.
“I’m — I’m still that bad, huh?” she murmurs — and lets out a sad, soft laugh, brushing back a curl of her hair. “You’re… right, King, I — I’m just sorry I keep making you remind me. I… just keep making this whole family remind me —”
“Uh, yeah. Almost like we love you, or something,” King can’t help himself, as he rolls over — right onto the floor, burying the world’s most evil diary under his soft, fuzzy belly. Luz laughs, a little less sad this time, and starts scratching him under the chin.
“You know, Luz, I realized something — I could get a dream-message to the Collector, I think, just like the times I did on accident, before they were free. Then he could help you make a better portal, next time he visits —” King takes a breath. He thinks of Camila calling him brave, and of the needle disappearing before he even realized.
“And… I can give a little extra blood, while we’re waiting. If you need to use that archway thing —”
“Oh, King.” Luz buries her face in his fur, a breath of warmth with each word. “You’re such a trooper. And… I guess I never thought about getting the Collector’s help, but…” She lifts her head up, blinking slowly. “…Raine and Darius. They made copies — of the pages on coven brands. I really wanna help them remove brands, because… well, maybe I don’t know if it’s a good reason, anymore, but — I promise, whatever I do, I won’t let it stop me from eating and sleeping, okay? I’ll take care of myself, I will.”
King tilts his head at her. “…And?”
“And I’ll tell Eda everything! I know, I know!” she adds. “I know that I should tell her, too. She’s definitely onto me anyway, but — but I’ll tell her everything, tomorrow. Then she can even keep helping me with… oh. Um, let’s say, a maybe not-so-secret spell that I’ve been working on…”
She trails off, choosing to just gaze up at the window, instead of give any context — but King knows how Luz gets, when she’s working on a spell. He nods anyway.
“This… shall suffice.”
That pulls her eyes back down. “Thanks, King.” She shakes her head a little, rubbing King’s neck a little more. “Hey. You never told me where you were this afternoon —”
“Oh!” How could King forget?! He springs to his feet, rushing back to his backpack, and rummaging within. Stupid journal, going and distracting him —
“Ooh! Secrets and surprises, huh?” Luz asks, as she sits up — like she can tell, just from the way King holds his backpack so protectively — and King’s heart thumps inside his chest.
“…Yeah, uh. Surprises.” Come on, King. Remember your words.“Um, I hope this isn’t weird, but… but…” No going back now. Just trust your feelings —
“But — but Camila told me more about your family,” he confesses, all in one flood, “and — and I just thought, since you don’t — you don’t have your glyphs anymore, Luz —”
She gasps. Her hand flies up to cover her mouth, as her eyes widen. “King —”
“I just thought that you, um… you… you might want a new way to grow flowers in the Isles!” King blurts out. He flips his backpack upside down, and a smaller package rolls out, tumbling across the sleeping bag to stop in front of Luz’s feet —
It’s a woven bag, full of flower bulbs. Brown and purple, lightly caked in still-fresh dirt. Luz lifts the bag off her bedroll, rolling a bulb into her palm — and her eyes go from wide to shimmering, from tears that well up in the corners.
“…Amity said that you’d like this kind,” King adds, “and… Willow promised they’ll bloom in August, okay?”
Luz throws her arms around him. Scooping him off the ground, and burying her face in his fur. As he hugs her back, he feels every one of her sniffles.
“This — this is gonna be just as good as any magic, King,” Luz whispers, “because it’s a great gift from the Titan.”
Oh. Oh. Here come the waterworks. And — and not from Luz, but — but from him. He clutches her tight, sobbing right through her stinky old hoodie — and she keeps holding him close. Shaking her head, and running her hands down his back —
A gift from the Titan. King could say the same to Luz being alive. Because the Titan, the Boiling Isles Titan, saved Luz’s life — and maybe, maybe, even saved her life more than one way. All King the Titan did was just — all he did was just —
He’s not even sure. He’s not his dad. He’s just King. But…
Maybe, he still trusts Luz when she says so.
Out of anyone, she would probably know.
“Thank you for thinking of me, King,” she murmurs, wiping teardrops out of his fur, and pauses, before asking: “Do you want to help me and Mamá plant these bulbs tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I mean, if — if you want me,” he stammers, because they’re — the flowers, they’re not for his dead dad, except… well. Okay. Maybe it’s… a little more complicated. Maybe… maybe, there’s some dad conflation happening. You wouldn’t conflate a dad, would you? Dad conflation, not even once. He’ll — he’ll let himself think about that later. For now, he just takes a breath.
“Of — of course I’d want you to be there, King,” Luz says — all soft, all gentle. “You think Eda should help us pick a spot, too?”
“Eda…” With a lump in his throat, King lowers his eyes. “I — I heard you talking to her, Luz. About… mind magic, about — about talking to memories —”
“What?” Luz gasps, eyes flying open. “No, wait — how much did you hear? That was — King, that was supposed to be a surprise for you —”
“Wh-wh… wheh?!” King stammers. Lump in his throat, what lump in his throat? Startled right out of him, like a hiccup. It was all supposed to be — the mindscape spell, it was supposed to be — it was supposed to be what? Supposed to be for who?
“But — but I thought,” he whispers, voice fading to almost nothing, “I thought — I thought… I thought that Manny…”
Wait. Wait.
What had King — what had he literally just been calling it? The thing about… about dads, and conflating them?
“My papá? No. Oh, no…” Luz wipes her tears, shaking her head with a soft smile, and — and — and in the corner of that smile…
There’s one, tiny little fang, for the last rays of sunlight to glint off of. The fang that appeared with a whole lot of other changes, but never went away like the rest of them — just stayed part of her smile, part of Luz. One tiny little tooth, still poking through her lips — so innocent that you never, ever would’ve guessed how it got there.
King stares. Luz sees him staring, and tilts her head.
“Do you ever wonder,” she murmurs, “what happens in a mindscape where there used to be two inner selves? And… they both loved the same family, very, very much?”
“You… want to find out,” King whispers. It’s not a question. Unlike what Luz asks him.
“But — but do you?” She takes his paw in her hand, but doesn’t give him a squeeze, yet. “You’ve done so much for me, King — what do you want?”
King’s eyes drift down, towards the bag full of flower bulbs. And… he curls his claws around Luz’s fingers, squeezing.
“I… don’t know if I know for sure. But… but I think, I… I think I might want to find out together.”
Luz squeezes him back.
“Oh, always together, King. Always together.”