Slight warning concerning harder-to-digest scenes. Nothing too unsettling but I suppose I can put this here regardless.
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I got back to Bonesborough and came to the conclusion that I could go see Willow right now and fulfill my obligation towards Luz. I still cannot fathom that I have lost that duel. How is it possible? She can't even do normal magic, however, I might have underestimated her. Those glyphs seem to be a powerful asset, I wish I knew how to use them and more importantly how to counter them. I figured out that I could try to do some research in the library later. As of now, I'm heading toward Willow's home, I can't remember the last time I was there. Actually, I'm kinda curious how Willow will react but I'm not expecting her to be a bundle of joy.
I reach the door and knock. One of her dads opens them and looks at me confused.
"I'm here to see Willow Park" I explain "Is she home?"
"Are you a coven scout? Is Willow in trouble?" he asks concerned I try to calm him down explaining.
"Far from it, indeed I am a member of the emperor's coven but I'm not just a scout nor is Willow in trouble. I just need to talk to her." He isn't really convinced, maybe I was too vague about why I'm here, nevertheless, he reluctantly calls Willow to come and see me. She gets to the door and upon seeing me is clearly dissatisfied.
"Amity..." She says looking at me with contempt. "You can leave us alone dad, I will handle it" she says to her father and he leaves us alone. Willow steps outside closing the door behind her.
"What do you want Blight?" She asks with a voice full of resentment.
"Well... I know we weren't on the best terms lately..."
"Don't say." She interrupts me mockingly.
"Yeah... I just wanted to clear things, up so there are no hard feelings between us. Soooo, I guess, I'm sorry for trying to arrest you." I put up a slight smile, but I'm aware of how stupid this must sound. I wish I planned this conversation a little more.
"Please tell me you are joking Amity." Willow's response confused me a little. "Firstly let's get out of the way the fact that you are here only because you lost the duel with Luz. Honestly, I'm kinda surprised she beat you that quickly but that's not the point. If it wasn't for the duel obligation you would have never and I repeat NEVER, bothered to come here and talk to me." I stand there shocked as Willow continues "And don't even get me started on what you are apologizing for, do you really think I care about you trying to arrest me, especially after the years of bullying back at school? What? Did you think I would forget after 3 years how you used to treat me?" Now I'm starting to see how short-sighted I was with my apology.
"Willow, I-"
"Oh, don't you 'Willow' me here, do you think I care about your disingenuous apology? Do you really think I will forget about all those years when you were bullying me every day after a simple 'sorry'? I thought you were smart but I was definitely wrong." I'm starting to panic, this conversation is getting out of hand.
"Please, just let me explain..." I try to bargain with her.
"There is no explanation required Amity, we are both unhappy with how our meeting two days ago went, whatever, not that I really care, that is not the main issue. Now, get lost, I don't think there is anything to add here." She says and gets back inside closing the door. I block it with my foot just before it closes.
"Willow, please..."
"Back away Amity, you only care because I stood up to you and didn't allow you to go all over me as you used to. I will say it one last time. Get. Lost." She put a huge accent on the last two words, pushed me away, and closed the door. I stood there for another minute not knowing what to do. I certainly did not expect it to go like this.
Even though at the beginning I went here more out of obligation than my own will now to a certain extent I want to make an amend to Willow. Although I'm not even sure if this feeling comes from a genuine place. I wish I had someone to talk with about all this but I can't even mention losing the duel or how Willow totally wrecked me in conversation, twice. I was so stupid thinking I can just apologize to her. She is right, I was terrible to her for years but why do I suddenly care? For now, I just want to go home and cry, today was terrible, I lost the duel, and now this. I feel like I'm falling apart without anyone to hold me. Maybe tomorrow during training I can find a way to talk with Lilith without providing her with too much detail.
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I still can't believe I won the duel, I walk happily back to the Owl House. I'm aware that I still owe Eda a talk but at least she doesn't have to break me out of the conformatorium. I reached my destination but Eda is nowhere to be found, I check every room twice to make sure she is not sleeping somewhere. As I step outside again I hear something behind me.
"Looking for someone Luz, hoot?" I jumped as I heard that, wait, did Hooty just manage to scare me?
"Hooty! Don't... Eh, whatever. Have you seen Eda?"
"She is on the beach, extracting trash from a slug monster, but why would you need her when you have me."
"I think I will take my chances and try to find her."
"Whatever. OH, a bug, hoot! Come here you little..." and now Hooty is chasing a bug, perfect. No wonder he is so dirty all the time. Without losing another second I make my way to Eda's favorite trash-collection beach. Hooty was right, she indeed was here, digging through the corpse of the snail monster with King's help. I run to them waving, they spot me and make a brake.
"Look who decided to show up, did you beat this prissy Lilith's protegee? I suppose you did considering you are not in the conformatorium."
"Yeah, though it wasn't as smooth of a fight as I would have wanted. Let's say we had a third party involved, I will tell you everything when we get back."
"Fine, by the way, I'm proud of you Luz. The Blight kid isn't just a simple foe, honestly, I have to admit your magic skills are quite impressive. I don't want to say I did not believe that you could win this but I thought it will at least take you longer." After this I let Eda finish her 'work' and in about an hour, we are back at the Owl House.
I helped Eda unpack all the stuff she had collected. After we were done she took me to her room.
"Ok kid, spill the beans, how it even happened that you challenged Lilith's protegee to a duel?" She asked. I started to explain how after our expedition in search of the Fluff Bush we stumbled upon Gus and then told her about everything that followed. When I got to the part containing challenging Amity to a duel Eda interrupted me with a question.
"And why exactly you didn't settle everything right here and there, you are saying that the Blight kid was already exhausted, you could have just kicked her ass and everything would be fine."
"Come on Eda, you know me, I would never do something like that, even to an enemy. Moreover, I was exhausted as well and honestly didn't want to check who was more drained me or Amity." Eda rolls her eyes responding with;
"Ugh, whatever, so you scheduled a duel, and you didn't tell me because?
"Well, first of all, you weren't here yesterday and secondly you didn't ask, I promised her to come alone anyway so it's not like it would have mattered. Anyway, continuing with the story..." I keep going with my narration of the duel and make sure not to skip any details regarding the fight since I hope to get some tips from Eda afterward.
"...and then we were interrupted by this funny red goblin from the emperor's coven."
"What do you mean by 'red goblin' Luz?
"You know, this crazy small lady, I think her name was Kiki something, Kikimora maybe?" As I say her name Eda's eyes get bigger.
"Kikimora!? What did you do to her? Or better question; How are you still in-tact after fighting her?"
"What do you mean Eda? She wasn't powerful or anything, she just had those weird abomination soldiers but Amity helped me to deal with them as I took on Kikimora and obliterated her without breaking a sweat."
"Really? Wow, I heard she was stronger. And what exactly did you do after beating her I don't suppose you just left her there."
"Nah, Amity wiped her memory and... and... and we actually left her there." I say facepalming myself, how could I have forgotten about her? What will she do when she wakes up, I mean, wiping her memory is one thing but I think she will still be suspicious when she will wake up in the middle of the forest.
"Oh my titan Luz, memory spells are effective but they usually leave an overall emotional trace of what was erased, I don't suppose the Blight kid is skilled enough to implement fake memories in the place of the erased ones. Come on, show me where the duel was, and let's hope that Kikimora is still there unconscious, otherwise, we will have quite a problem. Maybe not everything I heard about her is true but one thing I know for sure. She has access to even bigger coven resources than my sister." I was so mad at myself that I disappointed Eda due to my recklessness and if that wasn't enough I could have put our safety in jeopardy.
Without losing another minute me and Eda jump on Owlbert and fly to the forest clearing where I fought with Amity. By some miracle, Kikimora is still lying there unconscious, well, we must have knocked her out pretty badly. We land and Eda gets closer to her
"Well, she is not as intimidating as I would have expected, are you sure it's her?"
"Honestly, I don't know her but Amity was pretty sure when we fought her and I figure that she knows high-ranked emperor's coven personnel."
"Regardless, let's get to work, consider this a free lesson" Eda said with a smirk "I'm not sure when you will find a memory alternating glyph but you can listen anyway."
She drew a spell circle next to Kikimora's head and started to create small pictures similar to Polaroid photos. She inserted them into Kikimora's head while explaining that she is creating fake memories right now and integrating them into Kikimora's persona. It sounds like a really high level of magic. I wonder where she learned such spells but after all, she is the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles so such complicated spells suit her.
Eda further explained to me that when Kikimora will wake up she will think that she went here to meet an informant and got valuable information about our whereabouts. Of course, this will be useless to her but Eda says that this fruitful development should be able to hide Kikimora's emotional trace of the fight. I nodded at everything she said even though I didn't truly understand this magic but I don't think I will ever use it considering I can use only glyphs.
After making sure everything was ready we got back to the Owl House. On our way back I told Eda about the rest of the duel and how I managed to win. Sadly, she didn't have any tips for me regarding my fighting style, I can partially understand it since she didn't see me fight. When we were all set and done Eda went upstairs back to her nest but I stopped her.
"Eda, do you still have a minute to talk?" I wanted to get the incident with the Fluff Bush off my chest, taking advantage of Eda's supportive mood.
"Sure thing kid. What's bugging you?"
"Well, you know, when you sent me looking for the Fluff Bush' root... It followed us afterward and then attacked us, and then..." I take a deep breath trying not to cry "It all happened so fast, King, he was in danger and I- and I..." Here I was, breaking down over this once again. Eda took me to the sofa trying to comfort me.
"Come on Luz, bring it in." I hug her and I'm finally able to continue
"and then, I panicked and used the petrification combo on the creature. And now... I just feel so bad about it. I've sworn to myself never to use this but I had to, otherwise, the monster would have hurt King."
"Hey, hey, Luz, it's okay. You know, sometimes you do what you have to do. You care deeply for King and you did what was necessary to protect him. When such a situation happens, when someone you love is in danger you usually decide based on your instinct, and then sometimes those decisions might seem wrong in retrospect." Eda looked at me warmly "Surely it is important to consider the consequences of such decisions but you can't beat yourself up with what you did. You just have to process it and don't let guilt take over you. Believe me, I did many questionable things in my life but I've learned the hard way what happens when you allow guilt to take over."
I look at Eda still sobbing "You- You did?"
"Yes, well, maybe it wasn't exactly a consequence of my poor decision. As you know when I was young I've got cursed by someone. Overall, this curse is awful but at the beginning, I still thought I could control it in a way. My mom was stuffing me with potions and I started to believe it was under control. Until it turned out that it wasn't. One day when my dad came home he brought fireworks which I used to love when I was a small child. What should have been a perfect, chill evening turned into a bloodbath. When the explosions started the owl beast inside me went on a rampage, I- I attacked my dad, it was out of my control yet I didn't understand it back then. I crippled him permanently, later I was torturing myself with guilt for many years. I was wondering what would have happened if I was more careful. If I wasn't so confident that I will keep the curse under control. I became lonely and depressed, and I was unable to see my father even though he wasn't mad at me." Now I was the one hugging Eda as she was beginning to cry. Turn out we both needed to let go of some emotional baggage and make ourselves a mutual therapy session.
"And how did you manage to overcome your guilt?"
"You know, I just met someone, an amazing, joyful person, who showed me that there is more to life than just surviving, a certain human..." I have to admit, this one broke me. I burst into tears hugging Eda even tighter.
"Oh Eda, I love you so much."
"I love you too Luz, thanks to you I was even able to have a chat with my dad, I missed him so much. You brought light back to my life. Your talent to help people is amazing."
We just sat on the sofa crying together for another 5 minutes. I was so glad I've met someone as supportive as Eda, I wish my mom was like this. She also cared about me a lot but most of the time our interactions were cold. And then there was the whole issue with the summer camp... I still wish to see her again and although theoretically I could go back home even now I don't think that I'm ready to confront her. Especially since from her perspective, I've simply run away from home instead of talking things through. Maybe one day I will be ready. Maybe one day...
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Chapter 7 is concluded, I hoped you enjoyed it. As for post-writing thoughts; If the dialogue is clunky sometimes I'm sorry, I'm not the best when it comes to talking. I did my best, if something really strikes me as bad I will re-phrase it later. Also, a little spoiler for the next chapter. It will be longer than usual, Amity-focused, and probably much darker than other chapters. I should be able to finish it next week but no promises, finals are relentless. Anyway, stay tuned, byeeee.