The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

Luz woke up in the morning to find herself still cuddling with Amity. That was a good way to wake up but... Her arm was under her girlfriend, and she was still asleep. And so was Luz's arm. But Amity looked so peaceful right now, and yesterday had been so hard on her, so of course Luz didn't want to wake her.

However, the decision was taken out of her hands when her phone rang.

Amity startled awake, sat up, and asked "Wassat?"

"My phone," Luz answered as she quickly withdrew her arm and tried to shake out the tingles as discretely as she could. "It's uh, on the little table over on your side if you could hand it to me?"

Amity did as she was asked, and Luz saw that it was her Mom calling. She answered with the phone next to her head only to remember too late...

"¡Buenos dias querida!"

...That she still had it set to speaker.

"Morning, Mami," Luz replied back. Then she yawned.

"Luz, are you alright? I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, I'm fine," she was definitely feeling better than she had been yesterday, if still a little tired and beat up. "You woke Amity, but..." She realized moments too late that maybe saying that wasn't wise.

"Amity's there?" her Mom asked.

"...Yeah," Luz admitted.

"Good morning, Mrs. Noceda," Amity replied. clearly still sleepy.

"So when she sleeps over, she sleeps in your room?" her mom asked.

"Yeah..." There was no point in lying about it now.

"...Alone?"

"No," Luz replied quickly. "Half the time King sleeps in here with me," the little guy wasn't at the foot of her bed right now, but she could see him curled up in his little basket. "And even if he didn't, well... Eda gave us rules when we started dating and we follow them."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Amity asked. Luz could see the exact moment Amity's brain caught up to that line of questioning. It was when Amity became her most tomato-like. "Oh my Titan," she said quickly.

"Do you want me to get Eda?" Luz asked. "So you can talk to her about this?"

"No, no, I trust you. I just wanted to make sure... Did we ever have that mother-daughter talk?"

"When I was twelve," Luz deadpanned. "We also covered it in school. Both schools."

"Okay just... Promise me you won't grow up too fast."

"Promise," Luz finished. "So how did things go with Vee?"

"I asked her, she froze for thirty straight seconds and then said yes, we filled out the paperwork. It'll be a few weeks before everything is official even with that fancy New York Lawyer speeding things along but... Congratulations, mija, you're a big sister."

"Nice!" Luz cheered. "Can you get her on the line? I want to give mi hermanita my love."

"She's still in bed," her Mom replied. "I think yesterday wore her out, I kept catching her mumbling about having a 'real family,' the poor thing. Now, was your day as restful as it was supposed to be?"

Luz did not answer at first.

"...Luz?"

"It was not," Luz admitted. She didn't want to lie to her mother but she wasn't sure how to go about explaining what had occurred.

"What happened?" her Mom asked.

"My mother did," Amity interjected bitterly, apprently having overcome her mortification at the earlier topic.

"¿Qué?"

"Well," Luz began, "a little after our call yesterday after we figured out a plan for getting rid of the Coven Sigil—"

A terrible thought occurred to Luz. She reached out to grab Amity's arm and quickly checked her wrist and forearm.

"Luz, what—?"

"Okay," Luz finished with a sigh of relief to see that Amity hadn't taken half of her coven sigil as well. "We were planning how to get rid of it when Amity got a message from her mom calling for a family meeting with a..."

"An order to bring Luz with me," Amity supplied.

"And uh.."

"I'd get in trouble if I didn't," Amity continued.

"She said it's because she wanted me to feel like I was part of the family," Luz continued, "she uses Oracle magic and said that she didn't see any futures where I... On the one hand, I don't hate the idea, on the other it's kinda creepy that... Anyway, what she really wanted me there for was to try and pressure us into a..."

"A marriage contract," Amity finished. "She looked into the future, saw that the odds were good that Luz and I would get married someday, and decided to make sure it happened on her terms." There was a word for how much anger Luz's ESP was picking up from Amity as she said that and in Britain, it meant drunk instead.

"¡Esa bruja!" Luz's Mom shouted, which prompted a blink from Amity.

"Yes, she is a witch. I don't see how that's relevant," she replied.

"...Oh, shoot, Was that racist?" Mom asked. "I'll try to be more careful about that... So I take it your Spanish practice is coming along well?"

"I'm still having trouble with rolling my Rs, but, yeah," Amity replied. "But... Yeah. My mother just had to go and..."

Amity grabbed a pillow and screamed into it.

"Honestly, I'm kind of happy knowing that she can only see futures where Amity and I, you know... Last, but... the way she was talking when she floated the topic it seems like she thinks I only care about money," Luz added.

"As if my family's wealth could compare to how loved Luz makes me feel," Amity mumbled.

"You know you don't need to earn it," Luz reassured.

"I know, Batata," Amoty replied with a smile.

"...So, you come money, Amity?"

"Yeah," Amity replied. "We're um... Old money. And my family runs a business... Please don't get weird about this," she finished quickly.

"¿Luz? ¡Cásate con esta chica!"

"La verdad es que lo estoy pensando," Luz quipped back. "Quiero decir, cuando seamos lo suficientemente mayores... You mean for the humility and not the money, right?"

"Of course, Mija. What kind of woman do you take me for?"

"Not the kind my mother is," Amity quipped bitterly.

"Oh don't you worry, once the portal's working again I'm going to have a long talk with Mrs. Blight," Mom said in a very threatening way. "I assume you said no."

"Yeah, but then something else came up. Amity's mom, um... Don't freak out."

"Luz, saying that doesn't... What did she do?"

"...Made a deal with the devil where she was conned into forfeiting her family's souls. Amity and I had to beat Mephisto himself in a musical duel to get them out of it."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"He left behind a golden fiddle when we beat him and everything," Luz confirmed.

"Luz scared the heck out of me when she—"

"Wore myself out and almost collapsed," Luz interrupted Amity while making a 'don't' gesture dragging her hand across her neck. Luz didn't want to lie to her Mom, but she did not need to know that she'd wagered her own soul even if she'd worded the challenge so Mephisto could never collect. "She was so spooked that she ended up using a pain-sharing spell to take half of it and... I'm sorry I scared you like that, Sweet Potato."

"Okay..."

"...You're not, second-guessing letting me stay here, are you?" Luz asked, suddenly nervous.

"N-no," her Mom replied. "That... It's not like demo-evil spirits aren't a thing here. It could have... Was just bad luck but..."

"But what?"

"I got in touch with a man named Wong when I called the hotline for Doctor Strange. He said something about a 'crawling chaos' that Strange was dealing with but that he'd be able to help us in a few weeks, I... when he makes contact again I might ask for tips on how you can protect yourself from that kind of thing going forward."

"That's probably a good idea," Luz agreed. "Now, hopefully, nothing will come up and we can just spend today resting and... Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"No, I just wanted to check in on you. You're... Okay, right?"

"Yeah," Luz replied. "A good night's sleep and GF cuddles do wonders for recovery."

"But you said... Amity, if you took half of... How do you even divide...? Are you alright?"

"If I'm being honest I could do with breakfast and a nap," Amity replied. "It's better than last night though."

"Alright, I'll let you go no. Te quiero, Mija."

"Te quiero Mami, give Vee my love," Luz finished and then the call ended.

As both girls were thoroughly awake by then, they set down the stairs and found Amity's siblings. Luz was both surprised and confused to see their faces. Specifically, Emira's acne and Edric's glasses and stubble.

She looked at them and vaguely gestured at her own face before pointing at them.

"Concealment stones," Emira replied. "So anyway, now that you're up, there's something we need to talk about."

"Okay, what?" Luz asked while glancing at Amity to see if she knew.

"Well first," Edric began playfully. "Mittens, you never said that the Owl Lady let you and Luz share a room."

"Please don't," Amity said both quickly and grumpily. "We just had this conversation with her Mrs. Noceda, that was mortifying enough."

"Got it, boundary established," Edric replied while dropping the teasing tone. "Which brings us to Luz..."

"You're not gonna tell me that if I don't take good care of her and treat her with utmost respect they'll never find my body, are you?" Luz asked. "Because I already got a speech like that from Boscha."

"Are you kidding?" Emira asked rhetorically. "Mittens would kill us."

"With fire," Amity confirmed.

"Besides, we like you too much for that," Emira finished.

"We want to thank you," Edric continued. "For what you did yesterday. That... If what's his name hadn't taken the bait, if... You put your neck out for us and we aren't sure what we could do to repay you."

"That's not the kind of thing you have to repay," Luz replied as she rubbed the back of her head bashfully. "Besides, you guys are family."

This was met with an awkward silence before Emira said "Well, if you ever need anything from us just ask."

"I'll keep that in mind," Luz replied.

"Anyway, we should probably..." Emira drew a spell circle over Amity, hummed, and then repeated it on Luz. "Okay, you're both fine... As far as I can tell."

"...You know healing magic?" Amity asked.

"Yeah," Emira replied. "It's just a hobby but... Edric knows beast keeping magic."

"I had to learn," Edric defended. "A bat stowed away when we went to the Knee."

"Cool!" Luz quipped. "Where's Eda?"

"Haven't seen her yet," Emira replied. "After working out who got the couch last night—me!"

"Should have called tails," Edric mumbled.

"She grabbed some spare blankets and went upstairs with Ms. Lilith, I guess Lilith was sleeping on the floor in her room or something and—"

This line of dialog was interrupted by the Clawthorn sisters coming into the living room, Eda shepherding a clearly very startled Lilith forward.

"What happened?" Luz asked, concerned.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Eda insisted. "Lilly just had her first flare-up with the curse is all. But it's fine, we've got plenty of elixirs all over the house."

"Okay..."

"Now, ain't nothing scheduled for today," Eda continued, "nothing to worry about, no nefarious plots. So everyone just... Sit back and chill for a bit. Lilly needs to calm down and Luz, you still need to be resting. Doctor's orders... You too, Boots. Today's lazy day."

No sooner had Eda said that than the wind picked up. Significantly. Rushing to the window, Luz saw a funnel cloud approaching the house.

"I think we've got a tornado coming," Luz declared, panicked. Eda came up behind her and looked out.

"Oh no," she said in a subdued tone. "Kids, this is far worse than a windstorm. I need you all to hide in the basement. Now."

"Eda, what's going on?" Luz wracked her brains. "Wait, this isn't a gorenadow is it?"

"Much worse," Eda dismissed. "It's—"

Suddenly the wind stopped, and the front door flew open.

"Eda!" Hooty shouted into the house. "Your mom's here!"