Chapter Text
“Hola, Mija” the raspy sound of his horse voice made my heart quiver. I crept up to the hospital bed and soaked in the sight of my father. His once light brown skin had turned a sickly pale. The light in his lively bright eyes had dimmed like a stormy sky, while the lines near them were so deep it looked like someone had cut them into him with a knife. The hair all over his face was shaggy, un-groomed, and overgrown, as was the hair on top of his head. There was no wonder why he was in that hospital bed, hooked up in wires and a breathing tube resting in his nose.
I grabbed onto his cold clammy hand with both of mine. Tears welled in my eyes as horrible memories resurfaced from the deep part of my mind, I had shoved them back in. I had been there before. That very room still haunted me in my dreams even those many years later. The beeping sounds of the IV machine, the uncomfortable chairs next to dad’s hospital bed, the heavy smell of rubbing alcohol, all of it fought its way back to me all the time. This damn place would be the last room my father would ever see and though he tried to keep a happy smile on his face for me, I was no idiot. I knew how miserable he felt. I’d felt completely the same, for different reasons of course.
“Papa” I choked. My father brought his other hand to the side of my face and wiped away the tears from my cheek. He shushed me very gently.
“Luz” he said as quietly as he could without whispering. “It’s going to be okay”.
But it WASN’T! I already knew what was going to happen! A seizure followed by a code blue followed by the decision my mother would beat herself up over for the rest of her life! It would all happen on that same day!
“I may have to go soon,” he continued. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll be alone. You’re mami will still be with you and so will the rest of your family”.
“But you won't,” I whimpered, practically shaking. Remorse laid in my father’s clouded brown eyes. It wasn’t his fault he was dying, yet he still felt guilty for making his little girl cry. He was silent for a moment, trying to think of something comforting to say. Finally, he spoke, his voice now only a whisper.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret, something my papa told me a very long time ago”. There was a tiny mischievous smile on his face, as if he wasn’t supposed to be telling anyone this. “Everybody you love makes an imprint on your heart, one that can never go away, even if you forget that person ever existed. That imprint means that that person helped make you who you are today, which means there will always be a tiny part of them with you always. So if you love me–”.
“Of course I do!” I cried.
“Then I’ll always be with you, even when you don’t feel me there. All you need to do is be you”. My father delicately lifted his hand and pointed at the windowsill behind me. Sitting on it was a book I knew very well by now. I picked it up, my eyes so wide all my tears poured out of them. I held it close to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut.
“You’ve got to be brave for me, mija, just like Azura. Okay?”.
I nodded as my sorrow melted into raw, fiery determination. I didn’t understand what my father meant back then but I sure as hell did now. All throughout my younger years my father loved me, supported me, and that love and support I had felt those many years ago didn’t die along with him. Not only had he given me a gift that changed my life (Azura being my biggest icon) but just the way my dad raised me up stayed with me long after he was gone. All I had to do was feel it.
“Gracias papi. Yo también te quiero (Thank you, papi. I love you too)” I whispered with a few hics and sniffs here and there.
When I opened my eyes again, I was welcomed back by the rocky cavern walls, the many gems surrounding us, and the moonlight peeking from behind the clouds. Though I was out of the memory, I could still feel tears running down my cheeks. I went to wipe them away with my hand, but my arm tugged against the strap keeping it stuck to the smooth stone. I was quickly reminded of the little creatures and the whole me being sacrificed thing.
I looked up above me to see the horrible beast was now tangled with a strange glowing golden entity. Its back was turned, so I couldn’t see its face, but the top half of it looked almost human-like with a whole head of hair and everything. As the beast swiped at it with its giant sharp claws, the entity blocked with its semi-hairy arms. In between swings the entity struck back by grasping at the beast's horns and pushing it back into a corner.
The little creatures were all running amuck. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear their shrill shrieks and their hastened footsteps as they all ran. They were panicking, I just knew it, but why? It could’ve been the entity attacking the beast they worshiped, but they were screaming like they were being attacked themselves. I soon got my answer in the form of a shout. “Luz!”.
I knew that voice. “Amity?! What are you doing here?”.
Without responding, Amity slid into my vision. Her mint hair was messily falling out of her ponytail and her golden eyes were wide and frantic. She drew a small spell circle above me. From a pouch on the side of her belt, abomination matter floated into the air and formed a giant sharp dagger. The witch quickly commanded it to slash apart my restraints. She yanked me onto my feet by my arms, only for me to instantly stumble to the ground with a cry. All the aches and pains from the wounds all around my body were one thing but that one chunk of leg the first creature had bitten hurt so badly I couldn’t put any weight on my leg.
Amity reacted quickly. The witchling made the abomination dagger morph into a tall burly golem, a golem that picked me up bridal style and began to run besides my rescuer. It was only then that I could see what was going on with the little creatures. Scattered all over the cavern were more golems, much wider than Amity’s usual creations, with tons of the creatures stuck inside of them. They marched their way through the barrage, scooping them up and sticking them to themselves. For the creatures who tried to run, the golems would pick off a chunk of themselves and throw creating mounds of abomination goo everywhere. That all took a lot out of Amity, hence the sweat dripping down her face and her already snow-white skin a silky pale. Yet her adrenaline kept her strong. She kept running at a speed I had never seen the witch run before.
I looked back towards the smooth stone only to see the golden entity take a claw swipe straight to the face. It released the beast’s horns allowing the beast to wriggle its way free from where it was cornered. The gold entity shot towards it and grasped onto the beast’s back but it barely slowed the beast down. It just kept on flying straight towards us. Amity suddenly froze before turning around. With the largest spell circle she could muster, all the golems behind us melted into a giant wave of purple. The burst of goo swept both us and the creatures up. It pushed us outside of the cave, into the frigidly cold snow. I scrambled in place, still trying, but failing, to get as far away from the creatures as possible. Luckily for me the creatures all retreated back into the darkness as soon as the moonlight hit them.
“Are you okay?”Amity asked, out of breath. She looked me over, worry staining her face.
“I am, thanks to you”.
“For the love of titan, what were you thinking?! Don’t you know elves are dangerous?!”.
“Elves?!” I repeated, completely dumbfounded. “Those things were elves?!”.
“Yes! Didn’t you recognize the whole sacrificing you to a wendigo thing?”. When I said nothing, Amity continued with a sigh. “Elves worship wendigos like we worship the titan. The wendigos protect them and in return the elves sacrifice witches to the wendigos”.
As she spoke, Amity climbed to her feet and brushed the snow off of her jacket which she then took off and wrapped around my bad leg. She then commanded all the abomination matter into a sled that she carefully slid me onto. She grabbed onto the string and gazed down at me for a second. She began to walk back the direction I came, which surprised me. How did she know where she was going? Or better yet…
“How did you know I was in danger?". It took Amity a few seconds to answer, whether that be because of her still being exhausted from all the magic she used or her own embarrassment I didn’t know,
“I found Eda and King and they sent me after you. I was…I was looking for you actually” she answered sheepishly. “I have a gift for you”.
“Aw Amity!” I exclaimed. “You didn’t have to. I don’t have a gift for you”.
“You being safe is all I need, Luz” she responded after another moment. I couldn’t see it, but her face had flashed red.
There was an even longer moment of silence after that, one that lasted half the trip. Finally, I spoke up. I just had to ask. “What was that golden thing that attacked the wendigo?”.
“Huh? Oh, that thing?” Amity responded. “I’m not quite sure actually. It looked like some sort of spirit, though I’ve never seen one that wasn’t in wrappings”.
“A spirit? You mean I saw a ghost?”. Something finally clicked within my mind. Before that entity arrived, I had a flashback of my father. At first, I thought it was because of how close to death I was. Isn’t it customary for someone to see parts of their past before they died? But then I remembered what the Blight siblings said earlier that day. Did that mean…”Papi?”.
“What?” Amity called behind her.
I went to tell Amity everything about how my father had saved my life, but I paused. As amazing as it was, my father’s spirit finding the boiling Isle and appearing just in time to fight off a wendigo, part of me didn’t want anyone here to know of my father’s demise. I didn’t want to give them another reason to feel bad for me. They were already worried enough about how I was trapped here and separated from my mother. We didn’t need to add my father’s terminal illness onto that. So I stayed silent on the matter.
“Nothing. Let’s just get back to Eda and King”. Amity had quite the unsure look on her face, but she thankfully didn’t push the matter. We both said nothing more until we made it back to the small moonlit clearing.
When we arrived, Eda’s two differently colored eyes shot open as she took in my sorry shape. Both her and King rushed up to me, the latter climbing onto my chest and squirming into my arms. His soft black fur brushed against my many wounds making me flinch with a whimper. My noises scared King who scrambled back onto the ground with a fast apology. Eda instantly went for my bad leg, unwrapping it and exposing the deep wound to the open air again. She dug into her grey mane of hair and pulled out some gauze and healing glyphs. She gently rewrapped the wound after sticking the glyphs to it. The wound in response bled more and more until the bandage was red and soaked. She covered it with even more gauze before putting as much pressure she could muster on the wound.
“Kid” she murmured as she did so. “How did this happen?”.
“Elves” Amity simply growled as she grabbed some healing patches of her own and started tending to my other bitemarks.
“Dammit, Luz!” Eda growled scoldingly, her disbelief lighting ablaze. “Didn’t I ever tell you to stay away from elves?”.
“NO! No you have not!”.
“Well…um…Well you should have known better than to trust anything that cute!”.
I shoved off Eda’s comment and tried to relax, though the more I relaxed the more my body started to ache again. Now that the excitement was starting to calm down, all my fear was melting into sorrow. The familiar sting of embarrassment had taken over me like a ghost possessing its victim. I had ruined everybody’s frozen festival, hadn’t I? I ruined it by doing something stupid and nearly getting myself killed. It was that kind of shit that almost got me sent to summer camp in the first place. It was the reason the only one who cared about me back in the human realm was my own mother.
Amity noticed my despondency after a while. She stopped caring for my wounds and summoned a box with a spell circle. She removed the wrapping paper for me, what with how my hands shook when I reached out for it, then handed it to me. When I opened it all my sadness was shoved to the very back of my mind by my surprise. I saw a beautiful silver beaded bracelet with four charms hanging from it, one for each glyph I knew. You had an orange fire glyph, a blue ice glyph, a green plant glyph, and a gold light glyph. I gawked down at it in astonishment. I didn’t think I could ever love a piece of jewelry this much!
“Where did you get this?!” I asked, aghast.
“I had it custom made. I hope I remembered the glyphs correctly”.
“They’re perfect. Amity, it’s all perfect!”. I tried to reach up and give my friend a hug but the pain made sure my back was plastered to the sled. So instead I just settled with a, “thanks, Amity”.
“Alright, Minty” Eda broke in, taking me off of the sled and placing me onto a blanket she laid down. “I’ll tend to the rest of Luz’s wounds. You better get back to your family before your mom has a coronary”.
“Actually, Ed and Em are covering for me”.
“You think your mom is stupid enough to fall for illusions? Get, beat it, scram!”.
Amity flinched a little before running off, shouting a, “Bye, Luz. Feel better soon” behind her. I watched her push her way into the brush, fondness swelling in my chest. I then glanced back down at the bracelet shining in the light of the fire Eda built. As I thought of her I felt my cheeks flush, though that may have just been the cold. What did I do to deserve such a good friend?
“Alright, Luz. Let’s get you back to the owl house” Eda sighed when she finished dressing all the bite marks. She summoned her palisman with a whistle. Owlbert flew over to us, instantly turning to his staff form.
“What about the Frozen Festival?” I whined. “We can’t leave without having dinner first”.
“Your health is way more important. With the shape you’re in, we can have dinner at home”.
“Yeah” King jumped in from his spot in front of the fire. “As long as we have the feast and presents it doesn’t matter where we celebrate”. Eda glared down at him, making him quickly amend his statement. “And your health comes first” King added quickly.
“Don’t give me that look, kid. You didn’t ruin anything” Eda responded after seeing the giant frown on my face. “We’ll still have tons of fun tonight. Now let’s get going”.
A light feeling of peace suddenly swept over me as I heard my fathers words ring through my head once again. “Everybody you love makes an imprint on your heart”. I looked over at Eda and King and suddenly everything felt better. I got to thinking. Did I leave an Imprint on their hearts too? I clearly did if they were willing to stop their celebration just to tend to me. Perhaps I was all they needed to have a good time that night. Maybe that was the whole point of the celebration to begin with.