A Valeween Night To Remember

A Mistake

A little bit over a week ago, Luz had walked up the path to the Owl House under the dark of night, using a Light Spell to see her way, surrounded by once vibrantly coloured leaves turned to charcoal-black, turning it into an eerie, almost cold environment. There hadn't even been any wind, any rustling of leaves, or anything along those lines.

That had been the day that she had first learned about Valeween.

Back then, it had been easy to think of everything that surrounded it as something of an exaggeration. That everyone was overreacting to whatever was coming. Luz had barely had a full comprehension of what it meant, even though Willow had explained the event to her in a fairly straightforward manner. Knowing what would happen, and experiencing it - These were two extremely different things, to the point that Luz wasn't even sure if she could claim to have had any idea what Valeween really was back then. It was the difference between knowing what happened when a doctor had to reset a broken arm, and having your own arm reset.

Walking up the path in the dark again - A small, Magical ball of light hovering between her hands again, but this time, the plants back in their normal vibrant colours, the sounds of leaves and grass brushing against one another filling the air, and this time it was later in the night that she was heading back up the path - reminded Luz of that day.

It made her reflect, though -So much had changed since then. Back then, she didn't know what to expect, and her mind had been filled to the brim of question after question, and the desire to see them answered, to put her curiosity to rest. So many of those questions had been answered since then, but now there were other, much larger ones that had been asked in their place.

The way that Amity had acted around her - How Amity had always acted around her... Being one of the biggest questions answered. But now, what she felt towards Amity replaced it. One question answered, another one asked, this one far, far harder to answer.

Sometimes, Luz had to wonder if everyone else's lives were as complicated as hers, or if the universe just liked to mess with her specifically.

As she made her way down the path, she paused for a second, at a low hanging branch. It was the same one that she had torn a turned charcoal-black leaf from a week and a half ago, and found the leaf indestructible, reinforced by the Magic that the Cherubim had exerted, to watch the Witches of the Isles, to open the portal from their realm into the Isles, and to help them in their hunts. Perhaps out of paranoia, Luz reached out, and tore another leaf from the branch, and tried to crumple it, just to see if there were any lingering signs of Cherubim within it.

This time, it bent and broke without resistance at all. Just like a regular leaf normally did. A small breath that Luz didn't realize that she had been holding escaped her, and she continued on.

After a short while, Luz found herself in front of the Owl House again. Since the invasion had passed, the fortifications that they had put up around the place had been taken down, leaving the exterior of the house open, free and uncluttered again. The Human made her way to the front door, opened it carefully so she didn't wake up the already asleep Hooty, closed it behind her, leaned against it, and then sighed.

Today had been... An emotionally exhausting day, just like every other day had been for the last week now. It was starting to become something that Luz was used to, though that didn't ever make her feel less tired. She'd never been an academically inclined person, but the idea of studying for a thousand tests felt less daunting than this. Less exhausting, too.

Tilting her head up to look around the living room, her eyes fell on the couch - Lilith and King both sleeping. Lilith had fallen asleep lengthways on the couch, and at some point, Eda probably put a blanket over her. King had fallen asleep next to her. Seeing that made Luz smile, and quietly made her way past the pair of them, tip-toeing upstairs, and trying not to wake them up.