[discontinued] the wrong portal

taking matters into your own hands

Luz gasped as she sat up, looking at her surroundings, she was in a small alleyway in the town near the market she went to, she jumped up and rushed out, seeing a gaping hole in the street which seemed to have held a house, people standing, dumbfounded as they stared at the hole, all the other houses untouched. 

Luz' eyes widened and she turned, sprinting away as fast as she could, her legs carried her for a while until she doubled over, out of breath, she was still in her pyjamas and at this point they were dirty, torn and ruined, her bare feet beaten and bruised from tripping over rocks, she stood up straight and shouted out for the collector.

"Did you do this?" She shouted out and grabbed out at the shadowy figure, hands phasing through his body.

"Well, you seemed bothered by the guy, so I took care of him for you! I said I would help you so I did!"

"He didn't deserve to die! He could have had a family and you just destroyed his house!" She shrieked.

"Well, check your pocket." Luz reached in and pulled out a pouch, she looked inside and saw the coins she had given to the man, enraged, she threw them as far away as she could.

"This won't fix anything! You just killed a man over some stupid coins!" She yelled at the figure and started running away, trying to escape him. He followed, annoyed.

"That's not how it works, you can't get away from me, and I can't get away from you. Stop running, you're just going to get yourself hurt." Luz ignored him and kept running, she tripped on a rock and fell, hitting her head and knocking herself unconscious. The collector just sighed.

"Fine, you want to be difficult, that's on you." He hid himself in her pyjamas again, leaving her sprawled on the ground. 

Luz woke up in a sweat, clutching her head in pain. "Ouch, huh? where am I?" She looked around before noticing she was on a couch, covered with a blanket in a living room, a familiar voice greeted her and she turned to see willow, walking in with a worried look in her eyes.

"Luz, was it? I found you collapsed on the ground, are you ok?" She asked, a concerned tone in her voice as she walked in with a handful of what seemed like stickers with pictures of blue hands on them, she pressed a few onto Luz' body before pulling up a chair next to the couch and sitting with the human. "How are you feeling? You look like you hit your head pretty hard." 

"Um, I'm fine, thanks." She stood up quickly before feeling a dizziness wash over her, she fell back onto the couch and nursed her sore head.

"Don't do that! You'll make it worse! I'll make you some tea and we can sort out how you ended up here." She left the room and Luz waited, gratefully taking the tea when Willow returned with it. "So what happened to you? You were knocked out on the ground." Luz stopped and wondered how she could answer the question without giving too much away, after a few seconds of thinking she settled on playing dumb.

"Umm, I'm not sure what happened." She gave an unconvincing look of confusion, but Willow seemed to believe her.

"Alright, you shouldn't be exerting yourself, so you can stay here for a while to recover a bit."

"I can't. I need to get back to the castle, I didn't tell anyone that I left and I could get in trouble."

"Well, you can't do that in this state. You need rest." Willow affirmatively nodded and put another blanket on Luz. The human accepted defeat and settled down to rest, before Willow mentioned that she was having a friend over, Luz just hummed in agreement and closed her eyes again, before a squeaky voice sounded out a few minutes later, jolting her awake.

"Holy Titan! Is that a human?" The voice, high pitched and excited yelled out, and Luz looked up to see a small witch running up to her, he looked younger than her and was currently running circles around Luz, asking her a plethora of questions all mushed up together, making it impossible for her to understand him. He kept launching the incoherent noises at her until he was physically pulled away by Willow.