Witches and Nobility

Abnormal System

        The sun painted the Boiling Isles in its warm, golden hues as the time of early afternoon had finally made its arrival upon the land.

        The residents of the Owl House were in the marketplace where Luz had first entered the Boiling Isles, setting up shop where Eda sold various kinds of collectibles from the human world at her stall.

        Danica, of course, was with them as well, donning her cloak with her hood down for the time being as she helped Eda set up a variety of trinkets on the shelves while the Owl Lady was dusting some of them with her feather duster. Luz and King were sitting between the two witches at the table, the human holding her "Good Witch Azura" novel as she read it aloud to the latter.

        "'Emboldened by the dishonor Hecate had shown, Azura lifted her staff to the cotton-candy skies and shouted,' " Luz readjusted her hold on her novel as her voice took on a valiant tone to reenact the scene in her story. " '"I challenge you to a witch's duel!"' " Her voice promptly returned to its normal cheeriness as she pointed at a little doodle of the two characters of her book at the corner of the pages. "And look! I drew a flipbook!" 

        She playfully flipped the pages back and forth quick enough to make it seem as though the doodles were being animated. "Pew, pew, pew, pew ~ !" 

        "Show me the picture!" King suddenly piped up, standing up on the table and peering over the top of the "Good Witch Azura" novel. 

        "What?" Luz elapsed a curious blink as she halted her little activity with the doodles and glanced up at the little demon.

        "Show me the picture!" He repeated, to which the human obeyed as she turned the novel around to show him the pages' colorful drawings, including her doodles in the corners. When his eyes landed on the little flipbook, he let out a dismissive scoff. "Hah! I can draw better than that!" 

        He then stood up on the table and took on a mighty pose. "You know, they once called me the King of Artists ~ " He announced, gazing up at the sky with a smug look in his eyes. 

        Luz arched an eyebrow at the demon as she promptly lowered her book to look at him. "Wait, I thought you were the king of demons." She remarked in amusement, her words causing King to flinch as he immediately stiffened in response. "Are you just making this up now ~ ?" 

        "Doesn't matter!" King retorted with a huff, whipping back towards Luz with an eager expression on his features. "What's important is that my followers would leave me offerings in fear of me!" 

        Luz chuckled under her breath at the little demon's words before pulling out her book once more. "Well, I can offer you more of this tantalizing book ~ " 

        Danica placed one last item on the shelves behind them right before she decided to glance back at the novel in the human's hands with a frown. "No offense, Luz, but 'tantalizing' isn't exactly the right term I'd use for your book." She commented, turning around to face them with her arms over her chest. "Don't get me wrong. The story is interesting and all, but I have a question or two about its choice of grammar."

        "Is it how perfectly they use it to describe the mighty adventures and the fearless confrontations Azura has with her enemies ~ ?" Luz chirped in a sing-song voice as she held the book up in front of her face to show Danica. The young witch promptly squinted in response, flipping a few pages with a perplexed frown.

        "What even is 'callethed'...?" She questioned in bewilderment and a twinge of judgement, pointing at a random paragraph at one of the pages she stopped at as she attempted to sound the word correctly. "Authors can't just make up words on the spot like that. Why bother adding 'eth' to any word at all? If the book's going to be that hard to read, it's just going to be even more confusing and make people less and less interested."