-ood witch Azura stood before the snarling beast, staff smoking with mystical prowess. With a tremblin- nd she-
The page was covered in mud and splattered with rain.
The girl picked it up, and then kept running, her flashlight waving around wildly.
Her camp outfit was not made for this weather. It was cold and rainy, and Camp Pure N' Straight was made for people who had to handle New England autumns – but not New England storms. The rain was coming down sleeting and thick, pattering through the thick forests that felt like they had been untouched for centuries.
The girl, holding the paper to her chest looked around and shouted.
"Kat! Kaaaaaaat!"
There was no response.
She kept running.
She found another page. Then the cover and half the book –
The Good Witch Azura and… but the rest was covered with mud. She didn't even pick it up, because she could hear the sound of crying, cracking branches, rumpling brush. She ran forward and caught on a branch, stumbling. She almost fell forward onto Kat, who was hunched over next to a huge old tree. In the darkness and the thickness of the rain, the beam of the flashlight was visible and shone directly into her face. Kat lifted one hand, hiding beneath it and hissing, like an animal.
"K-Kat! Kat, I found you, Kat!"
"Go away!" Kat shouted, her voice thick.
"I-" The girl stood there, the beam of the flashlight trembling in her hands. She bit her lip, then stammered. "I-...I'm…"
Kat glared at her. In the shadows of the trees, protected by the rain, her eyes – mismatched blue and gold – were nearly feral with tears and anger and fear and sadness. She grabbed onto the lowest branch of the tree, dragging herself up, her camp outfit even more scraggly. She wasn't wearing a jacket for one thing. She didn't shiver, though. She was too busy shouting.
"You're what? You're
sorry?" Kat grabbed onto some mud and flung it. It splattered on the girl's chest and face, making her step back. "You're
always sorry! But you never
do anything, Adora!" She almost choked as tears stung at the corners of her eyes – bright in the flashlight, impossibly visible against the rain. "You...you…" She trembled, then closed her eyes.
"I-I….I was gonna...I was gonna s-say they were my books…" Adora whispered.
"You were
gonna," Kat choked out. "You…" She put her hand over her face.
Adora stepped forward, hesitantly.
She put her hand on Kat's shoulder.
Kat reacted exactly like she had when she was eleven, and Olivia had tried to bully her on the playground. Except this time, there were no teachers, and there were no other kids. There was just her and the woods and the rain, and her fingers scraped at Adora's face and cheek and hair as she shouted. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" Kat shouted. "You're always right! You always get everything!" She sobbed, her shoulders shaking.
Adora, her arms raised up to protect her face, whimpered.
"I wish...I wish I'd never met you!" Kat shouted at her, then stood. "I wish I was dead! I wish...I wish...I wish I was…"
She turned and then ran. The flashlight flickered and went dim – the water from the rain seeping into the housing, cracked against a rock. Adora felt blood stinging in her eye. She ignored it. She stumbled to her feet, and shouted. "Kat!" She started to move through the woods. "Kat!"
Then…
The dream always ended the same way.
She stumbled through the woods, emerged between the trees – and there was something in the darkness beyond her, lit by a thin slip of the moon peeking through stormclouds. It was
big whatever it was. Then two eyes, huge and bright and reflective, turning to face her, catching the moonlight and flashing it into her eyes. Then the shriek – and then…
Adora's eyes opened. She was panting and trembling in her bedroom, her face beaded with sweat. She sat up, slowly, in her bed, her body quivering. She could hear her mother's voice, echoing from down the stairs – she sounded like she was on the phone. "I see. I understand. Of course. I see." She was using the clipped tone that meant she was
angry. Very angry. Adora groaned softly, then looked out the window of her house. Across the way, she could see their neighbor heading out for her day job, humming cheerfully. The family – a married couple without any kids – had moved in after…
She shook her head, trying to cast off the dream. Instead, she slid from her bed and looked around the room. No matter what Mom had to say, she couldn't find fault with this room: Her Azura books were hidden, her old comics were tucked away. In their place were textbooks on every STEM subject, a few weights for her lacross training, and there...she smiled, a little sheepishly. There was her wooden practice sword, sheathed and hanging up in the corner. Mom was a stickler that Adora get into the same fancy pants college she had gotten through – but Adora had managed to finagle in her HEMA studies by finding a few examples of HEMA clubs at the same college.
It'll help me get in, I swear.
It was one of her few tiny victories.
The door to her room opened without a knock and there stood Mom, dressed in her red business suit. Adora's mother had been in a car accident when she had been young – the same car accident that had killed Dad. Adora, who had been safely in a car seat at the time, had no memories of it. Apparently, she hadn't even gotten a scar from it. On cue, the notch on her eyebrow twinged. She ignored it. Mom, meanwhile, had come away with…well, she had grown her hair long to cover what the plastic surgeons had managed to correct. Her lips were pursed as she looked down at her nose at Adora.
"We need to talk," she said, firmly.
Adora sighed, softly. "W-What is it, Mom?" She asked, sitting on the bed. "My grades are doing okay, right?"
Mom stepped into the room. "Oh. No. No." Mom shook her head. "It's not your grades, Adora." She frowned. "According to the phone call I received, you were at the local...GSA." She brought out the acronym with clear disdain. Adora felt her heart sink. Cold, clammy fear prickled along her body. No. No. No. No. She had talked to the teachers involved, no one would have
reported her, Miss Bright was a
good teacher, she'd never call in. Adora froze still and her hands clasped on her lap. She remembered the stinging sensation on her wrist – back at Camp, they had given her rubber bands, and if she ever felt
impure thoughts she was supposed to snap it. The pain came back fierce and hot, despite the camp and the rubber bands being far, far behind her.
"W-Who, I...w…" Adora stammered.
"Mr. Horde," Mom said, pronouncing the name as if it were French, despite no one else doing the same. Adora's sting of betrayal became furious rage and even brighter fear. The old crotchety man was one of the most nosy people that went to their church – he wasn't even going to school! He just...lived nearby. She looked down at her lap.
"Explain yourself," Mom said, her voice flat.
"I-It's...it's f-for straight people too, I just...I just-"
"Ah, yes, well, I see!" Mom said, her voice prim. "You don't mind if every college campus learns that you're a
political activist. You know with the current climate, how extremely damaging politics like that can be."
"T-They say...they want politically active people…"
Mom sighed. "For
reasonable politics, Adora." Her hand reached down, and she stroked Adora's hair, tucking it back behind one ear – neatening her up as her words made her feel so pathetic and small. Her voice dripped into Adora's ear, gently. "Not for running around with a bunch of
queers. And you don't want your colleges, your future workplaces, to think you're some lesbian. Do you?"
Adora clenched her hands even tighter. Her knuckles showed.
"Now, you're going to go to school and tell the GSA that you were mistaken when you signed up. You will dedicate yourself to your studies and...if you want a political opportunity, we can have you join up with something sensible – how about the Young Republicans? They can always use new members."
"Y-Yes, Mother," Adora whispered.
"Here," Mom said, reaching around from behind her back and holding out a pamphlet for the Young Republicans. She had it printed already. Of course she did.
"Now," Mom said, smiling thinly. "You have to get to school, don't you?"
She isn't smirking, Adora thought.
She doesn't smirk. Her scars just make it seem that way. They just make it seem that way. They just make it seem that way. She thought the words over and over and over as she threw on her red jacket, slung on her backpack, got her textbooks, and took the flier. She forced her hands to not clench and crumple it up, her heart lumping in her chest. She walked out to the sidewalk, the crisp air biting her lungs as she looked around herself, then headed for the spot where the school bus would come and pick her up and take her to Gravesfield High School. She looked back down at the pamphlet.
There was a smiling blond woman and a smiling black man, both in suits, shaking hands.
The future of the right...today!
She looked up. Across the street, she saw the house that had once been Kat's house. Her foster parents had moved away after she had...Adora shook her head.
She has to have died, you know, her mother's voice, echoing from the past, whispered into her ear.
It was nearly freezing, in the rain, without a jacket, off into those woods. People can still get lost in those woods. And it is not as if she was a particularly rational girl – ah well.
No. She had to believe Kat was alive. Somewhere. She had to have run away, and now she was-
The pamphlet tugged out of her hands. She blinked, looking down, and saw...a tiny owl had snagged onto the printed paper and had taken advantage of her distraction to steal the...the thing that would lead to her mother immediately murdering her if she lost it! Adoraa jerked, shook her head and started to hurry after it. "Hey! Give that back!" She exclaimed, even though she
knew it was absurd, even though she knew it was just an owl. But the tiny owl hopped into the air, wings flapping, and skimmed across the street, heading for the woods that clustered around Gravesfield.
Adora rushed after the owl as it hopped, skipped, scampered, and came into the clearing beyond the woods – to...to…
Adora froze, her jaw dropping.
I thought this place fell down. Mom said it fell down!
And she had never checked. Not because she trusted Mom, no. But because every second of being inside the old, run down house in the woods – the abandoned building that had stood near her street since she had been a little girl – would remind her of Kat. She would see the little scribble of her face and Kat's face, with A+K drawn next to it. She would find the corner where they had tucked their sleeping bags, before Mom had started to come down hard on them both, before...before she had started to whisper to Kat's foster parents.
It's not normal, she had said.
They should both go. Here, I've already found the camp.
Adora shook her head, realizing that she had frozen long enough for the tiny owl to scamper into the house.
"Get back here!" She exclaimed, rushing towards the door.
She opened the door, scrambled in, then dove for the owl – but he had already hopped behind her grasp. She skidded along...dirt? She blinked, slightly, as the owl hopped onto a boot, then got snatched up by a pale hand. The hand was attached to an arm, which vanished into a set of robes, which covered a pair of bright, bright eyes. "What do we have here, Owlbert!" The figure snatched the Young Republican flier. "Yeesh! They have this stuff in the human realm too?"
"Give that back!" Adora said, scrambling to her feet.
The robed woman blinked at her, throwing her hood back. She was pale and old, with a sharp featured face, bright golden eyes, silvery hair that bloomed around her head as if she had never even heard of styling her hair. She had a few wrinkles here and there, but otherwise seemed quite healthy. She smirked slightly at Adora.
"You want some trash?" She asked, as the owl hopped up onto...onto her walking stick. That was the name that stuck stubbornly into Adora's mind. But she knew it was not a walking stick. No walking stick was that long. No walking stick was so well carved. No walking stick...would have the owl settle into place, close its wings around its body, close its eyes and shimmer into
wood. What had been flesh turned to smooth wood, and the woman, with the flier tucked under her arm, reached over and
twisted the owl into place with a smooth click. And now her
walking stick had an owl shaped head.
But it wasn't a walking stick.
It was a staff.
"I-It's not trash!" Adora said. "It's, I, for me! That is! I...that's my...mine."
"Well, it's trash in the human realm," the woman said, chuckling as she did so, tucking her staff against her shoulder with a smirk, and sliding the rolled up parchment into a bag that hung near her hip which itself was full of more things that Adora recognized: A few magazines, a pair of glasses, a bra, other things buried beneath. Adora blinked at her.
"Human...we're both human!" she said, hurrying after the woman as she walked towards the...the other door out of the house. Except it wasn't a house. It was a tent. The floor was dirt. And when Adora turned back, she saw the doorway leading out to the familiar, orange and brown dusted woods of Gravesfield was floating in the air, a solid two inches off the floor. She would have noticed, had she not dove through it. With a
click, the door closed, then folded in on itself, snapping shut until it was nothing but a closed briefcase, which drifted through the air like…
Like magic.
...to the woman's hand. She snagged it from the air and gave her a toothy grin.
"Are we, blondie?" she asked, brushing her hair back to reveal that her ear had a single sharp point.
Adora's jaw dropped.
Then the woman slipped out of the tent flap, leaving her alone in the dimness.
Adora blinked several more times.
This is impossible. I've gone insane. Mom was right, I was gay, and thus, crazy. I have gone insane crazy gay! The kind of gay that makes you crazy!
She walked to the tent flap, then reached down and swept it up – and saw that she had, indeed, gone completely insane crazy gay. She was not in Gravesfield anymore. She was not in Connecticut anymore. She was, in fact, not on
Earth anymore. She was standing in a market stall, full of tents that had been set up with tables showing off wands, statues, paintings, gemstones, pulsating organs (wait, organs?), strange flowers, vines, captured beads of glass hanging suspended in flames, glowing potions, staves, robes, hats and what appeared to be floating balloons made up to look like eyeballs. Adora goggled at those – until one of the 'balloons' swung its iris around and glared at her.
"Eaugh!" Adora screamed and stumbled backwards into something broad and tall. She spun around and gaped at the huge, muscular and
very purple woman glowering down at her. Adora wasn't sure if she should panic because she was mortal and killable or panic because she was very gay. She stepped back, stammering. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"
"Hey, I wasn't complaining," the woman said, grinning.
"Huntra, back off!"
"Oh, I didn't know you had your eye on her, Eda the Owl Lady," Huntara said, grinning, while Adora spun around to see the old lady from before was gesturing her over. She rushed to her side, hissing.
"Where the
heck am I?" she whispered.
"The Demon Realm," Eda said, cheerfully. "Now, quiet, I need you for something."
"Are you going to eat my soul!?" Adora asked, horrified.
"I, what? No!" Eda said, laughing. "I'm a
witch, honey, not a demon."
"Witches can eat souls too!" Adora squeaked.
"Well, I'm not gonna eat your soul, just...stand there. No, a little to the left." Eda waggled her finger – and a spark of golden magic shimmered around her fingertip. She swirled a circle into the air – and then, with a flash, a table appeared from nowhere and the ground beneath Adora's feet shifted, then rose an inch, then two. She yelped, flailing her arms, but managed to remain standing as she was hefted up above the crowd, while Eda tossed her various bits of trash out onto the table and spread her arms wide.
"Come one! Come all! And marvel at the artifacts...of the
Human Realm! With one genuine, actual, factual, human! Watch as she demonstrates her eerie
human powers!" Eda said, waving her hand wide. "What powers are those? Why you have to spend a snail to find out!"
People who had been drawn by the call were perked up by the promise. They started to walk forward, murmuring excitedly as Adora saw some were witches, like Eda. Some were
definitely not witches, some were definitely not even remotely close to human. One was a huge snail, for crying out loud. The snail waggled his eyestalks at her and spat a golden coin onto the table, which Eda picked up and started to wipe clean.
"I wanna see what cool powers a human has," the snail said, in matter of fact, totally understandable English. Adora had no idea why, but she just never expected a snail to know English.
"Well, show away, blondie!" Eda said.
Adora froze. Her brain whirled through every possibility she could think of. She stammered. "B-Behold!" She said, reaching into her pocket and yanking out her smartphone. "My...r...rectangle...of power!" She waggled it, terrified that the demons and witches would soon grow wrathful and furious at being scammed – since more of them were throwing in gold coins by the moment. The demons and witches kept blinking at her. "Uh, by the power of...Ge-Ohmm-Etry!" She said, holding it up and tapping randomly and blindly at the touchscreen, until the songs finally hit shuffle and it started to play
I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It by Katy Perry.
"Uh, shoot, I didn't mean to play this song, sorry!" She stammered, while the crowd gasped and murmured in approval.
"I've never seen a rectangle do illusions!" A witch whispered.
"This song's catchy and faintly exploitative lyrics fill me with delight!" a demon exclaimed.
"Show us more abilities of your fearsome rectangle!" Another demon – this one short and horned – shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.
"Heh, can I pick em or what?" Eda said, cheerfully, as the coins continued to pile up.
"You sure can...you can sure pick a quick route
to prison!" A booming voice rang out, and a hand grabbed onto Eda's wrist from just around the corner of her tent. A burly looking creature that might have been a demon or a witch – it was hard to tell, thanks to the conical face helmet-mask thing that Adora was fairly sure she had seen in a few historical textbooks. She blinked as the guard – for guard that had to be – hastily brought his hands around to snap a pair of gleaming, rune encrusted handcuffs around Eda's wrists.
"Hey, no fair!" Eda exclaimed, her fingers sputtering with impotent sparks. She scowled. "You jerks were a lot more fun
before the Golden Guard taught you how to
cheat."
"Hah!" The guard said.
Then Eda slammed her heel into his foot. He had a thick boot, but her foot drove home with enough strength to make him jerk backwards and yank his foot up. He clutched it and shouted – while Eda...sung her hands around and knelt down then stood up again. Somehow, her hands were in-front of her now, while still being manacled. Adora hadn't quite seen how she had managed it, but before she could leap to help, Eda bonked the guard in the head, then bonked him again with the staff, sending him down. Then she tossed the staff out with a little 'hup!' and it…
Hovered in the air.
Adora realized she needed to stopped being shocked by this.
"Now, lets just...get this off…" Eda muttered, looking down at her wrists.
Two more guards were coming towards her, the crowd starting to draw back, gasping in shock and alarm – though, for one thing: Katy Perry had stopped playing. In its place was
When Worlds' Collide by Powerman 5,000. The lyrics started driving as Adora realized two things with a bright flash of inspiration. The first?
She was either crazy, or she was actually in another world – and if she was in another world, then she had a duty to do what she could to help.
The second?
She
could help. She stepped forward, put her foot on the prone and groaning guard, grabbed onto his hilt, and drew his sword with a quick rasp. The shining blade was light in her hand and felt exactly how she expected it too. She gripped it in both hands as Eda laughed, then tossed her handcuffs away. "Eat slugs, Golden Jerk!" she said, sounding pleased, while the two guards rushed forward, shouting war cries at the top of their lungs.
To Adora's shock, everything she had been taught about swords did
not immediately fly out of her head. She parried one strike, dodged from another, then brought the pommel around to bonk the other guy in the nose. His nose-armor crumpled with a squeal of metal and he stumbled backwards. But then the other swung at her belly, and Adora realized she was not fast enough to bring her arm down to parry. But then she saw his sword sweeping under her feet. Then she saw him shrink, becoming smaller as she blinked.
She looked up, and saw that Eda had dragged her up onto the back of her staff. And she was flying.
She was
flying.
She was flying in the air!
On a staff!
"You think you can get away!?" The guard shouted. "Just because you can fly!? Huh!? Well…" his voice faded as Adora screamed and threw her arms around Eda, squeezing herself to her back. "...you can! Does that make you happy? Satisfied? I hope so, Owl Lady! I
hope so!"
His voice faded to nothingness.
The village beneath them – more a town, really – was surrounded by thick forests. Clouds bloomed overhead. The colors were all subtly wrong, done in shades of purples, blues, oranges and greens that were all so
faintly incorrect, save for when they were extremely incorrect. A mountain rose to the south, and another to the south east, with clouds drifting by around them, snow dusting around them. To the north, there was more clouds – but she swore she could see an even huger mountain that way. It had a strange...shape. Her brow furrowed, then she yelped as the staff dove. She hastily tucked her sword under her arm, to free up her hands to more firmly grab onto Eda.
"Normally, I'd be giving you a fun introduction to the Demon Realm, blondie-"
"Adora!" Adora shouted.
"Hey, I don't know you that well," Eda said, laughing. "But we need to get out of here and go to ground
before the Guard shows up."
"Why?" Adora asked, clinging to her. "Is he trouble?"
"He?" Eda asked.
A shimmer of light crackled ahead of them – a flash of bright red, which
snapped into the shape of a robed figure. Pale white robes, sleek golden mask, gloved hands, their body was entirely covered. They rode a sleek staff of a subtly different design as Eda's – and they threw their arm wide, and a burst of flames exploded into the air between Eda and her route of escape. Eda pulled him, skidding into the air and coming to a stop as the mysterious figure laughed. Their voice was definitely female.
"Owl Lady!"
"Golden Guard," Eda said, sounding annoyed.
"Ohh, it's a
girl guard," Adora whispered.
"You've stuck your head in the noose often enough…" The Guard said, standing up onto her broom. Her mask, Adora noticed, had tiny cat ears carved into it – and...ah, she had a cat tail as well, sweeping behind her. Oh. Wait. That was literally a cat's tail, not a costume cat tail. A cat demon!? She blushed, hard, as the cat-demon stood on her flying staff without a single sign of concern, despite the hundred plus foot drop beneath her. "You know, the Emperor
really has been as generous as possible – but even his patience is running thin."
She shrugged, palms up. "One of these days, he's gonna send me and the Coven Heads and Kiks and Lilith and every guard he's got all to take you down, and I really doubt you'll manage so well then."
"Heh, I'd like to see you even
find me," Eda said, smirking at the guard.
"Yeah, man, where would the Owl Lady live! Could it possibly be the
Owl House. The Owl House right over there?" The Guard pointed back at a clearing in the woods, where a several story house had been established. Even from a distance, it looked...homey. Welcoming. Adora bit her lip, then tensed as she readied herself to…
She wasn't sure.
Throw herself at the Golden Guard when she had a chance? So far, the Guard hadn't paid much attention to her.
"Okay, finding me, easy!
Getting to me, that's a little trickier," Eda said, chuckling as she did so, her arms crossed over her chest as she used her knees to keep the staff steady.
"I mean, I can always just burn down the forest," the Golden Guard said, dryly.
Eda frowned. "And piss off the entirety of Bonesburrough? The Emperor can't afford to alienate his subjects like that."
"Oh wow! You're
right! It's totally impossible to just, like,
lie to the bunch of gormless rubes!" The Golden Guard laughed, her voice high and...and...Adora's brow furrowed. Despite the fact they were hovering, steadily in the air, her stomach dropped out from under her. She craned her head around Eda's shoulder – and barely noticed the faint wet
plop of something landing in her hands. She looked down and froze as she suddenly realized how Eda the Owl Lady had gotten out of her restraints.
Her
hand had fallen off. It was now in her hand, with a tiny bony stump sticking out of the base, like a cartoon. Adora's eyes widened and she opened her mouth, frozen so completely in shock and revulsion she didn't even scream.
"What, you'll blame me?" Eda asked, frowning as the hand twitched its fingers in a little 'throw' gesture.
"...yeah, basically," the Golden Guard said. "Evil Wild Witch Edalynn Clawthorne burns down Bonesburrough woods in wild magic gone wild. Seems pretty simple to me. Or, alternatively, you-"
The hand had moved.
The hand had moved.
The
hand had moved!
Adora's entire body was filled with the paralytic terror that overcame anyone when they were holding a detached, disembodied hand and were suddenly aware that said hand was not merely dead flesh, but undead flesh, moving and squirming. The screaming, crawling horrors she remembered from
The Good Witch Azura Book Five: The Tomb of the Terrifying Tentacles exploded inside of Adora's brain and she let out an all mighty
eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuugh as she threw the hand as hard as she could. It whistled through the air and slammed directly into the Golden Guard's mask.
"Augh!" The Golden Guard exclaimed, flailing at the hand, jerking one leg up – her other foot kept remarkable balance as Adora noticed, with surprise, that while her hands were gloved, her feet were actually mostly bare. Her arms flailed wildly, and she drew out a fluttering piece of paper, then slapped it against her own mask moments before Eda shot forward. She snatched her own hand off the Golden Guard seconds before the parchment flash – then exploded with a crack of bursting fire. The Golden Guard was flung off her staff and plunged towards the trees.
"Serves her right, little psycho-" Eda said.
The Golden Guard thrust out her palm, made a twisting motion, and her staff whistled around, flew down, and she landed on it with her feet, her tail slashing through the air and her ears pinned back. She banked up like she was riding a surfboard, her staff meeting their level as she skimmed up and then drew another collection of papers, which each flashed, then turned into blue spikes. She punched each one and each shot directly at Adora and Eda. Eda yelped – but Adora snapped the sword up that she had kept tucked near her arm this whole time.
The ice – for ice it was – struck her sword and exploded.
Then they were over the clearing. The Golden Guard hissed, then froze. She stopped, as Eda skidded to a stop with a triumphant laugh.
For a moment, all three of them were still in the air as Adora looked into the Golden Guard's mask.
"...Adora?" the Golden Guard whispered.
Adora's stomach flipped six times over. She blinked, then reached tenderly out. Her fingers touched the mask, sliding it up, and up, revealing slender lips, revealing orange-brown skin, revealing familiar blue and green eyes.
Kat and Adora looked at one another for the first time since 2016.
And then a hideous monstrous owl head burst from the ground, beak swallowing Kat from her ankles to her head in a single ferocious gulp. Her squalling voice vanished into the ground as a lump traveled along the owl head, into the tube-shaped body that protruded from the ground. The owl, his face stupid and simple, looked directly into Adora's eyes. Then he coughed up the Golden Guard mask and said. "Hi Adora! I'm Hooty! Hoot Hoot!"
***
Edalynn tossed her staff onto a rack, waved her hand to bright to life every magical glowglobe in the entire house, and then flung herself down onto the couch in the center of the room. "Woof!" She said, her head resting against her pillow, her eyes half closed. "I'm
beat. It didn't use to be this hard, ya know?" She asked, while Adora stumbled, shell shocked, into the interior of the Owl House. She blinked several times.
"I-Is Kat dead?" she asked.
"You mean Catra?" Eda asked. "Nah, I try and not kill teenagers. Even twerps working for big dumb jerk like Belos." She sighed, quietly. "Hooty will vomit her up in a digestive cocoon a few miles away and she'll be able to break out and, hopefully, run home with her tail between her legs. Not many people want to try the Hooty express, I'll tell you that."
Adora sagged with relief. She slumped, then leaned against the door, skidding down it with a whump.
"...wait, you know Catra? The Golden Guard?" Eda asked, sitting up. "The Rune Witch? The Cat Demon that has been working for Belos?"
"Y-Yeah!" Adora said. "Except she's
none of those things. Her name is Kat Weaver, she's...she...we…" She looked down. "We were friends."
"Wait, that's a human name," Eda said, slowly, her eyes narrowing.
"That's what I'm saying, Eda! Kat was my friend! From the
human realms. She's a human being, like me! At least, I thought she was. No, she is. She was!" Adora flushed. "We were the best friends. We used to do everything together. She was an orphan, and...and I had lost my dad…" She looked aside. "But my mom got convinced that we were...ya know…"
"No, what?" Eda asked.
Adora blushed. Hard. She didn't want to keep explaining, but…
She supposed she owed Eda. Eda had brought her here – and that meant, she had brought her to where she could finally do something she had always wanted to do. She had brought her to where she could
make up to Kat. She had to find a way to fix this. To fix them. She lifted her chin, her cheeks blushing.
"She thought we were...lesbians," she said.
Eda blinked at her, arms still cocked behind her head.
"And?" she asked.
"And that's bad!" Adora exclaimed.
"You don't want to be lesbians? But girls are amazing!" Eda said.
"I think that...yes, I know! But...the...it's...there's…" Adora wasn't even sure how to explain it. She looked down at her knees. Then, slowly, Eda reached into her pocket, taking out the Young Republicans flier. She held it out between thumb and forefinger, waggling it. "Let me guess, these guys are still as lame as they were when that guy was around."
"Which guy?" Adora asked.
"Ya know. Big nose? I'm not a crook?" Eda said.
"Oh, uh, Bush, I think," Adora said, frowning.
"Yeah, Bush, that guy," Eda said, nodding. "Well, here in the Boiling Isles, no one cares what kind of anyone you kiss. Well, unless you're a guard working for the Conformatorium and Belos. Then they kinda do care, a lot." She shook her head. "Sucks, doesn't it?"
"That doesn't make any sense!" Adora exclaimed, springing to her feet. "Kat is...she...we…" She blushed. "I thought she was...like me. But what if she wasn't? Maybe that's why…" Her finger went to the scar on her eyebrow. The scar that Kat had given her, the day that they had never seen eachother again. She whispered. "Oh no, what if it's all my fault?" She started to pace. "I'm why Kat ran away! I'm why she ended up here, in the demon realm! And I'm why she's working for Belos! If it wasn't for me, I-"
"Whoa, slow down kiddo," Eda said, holding up her palm, stemming the tide of Adora's words. "Tell me what happened. No judgments here." She sighed. "We've all made mistakes in our past around here, in the Owl House?"
"Even Hooty?" Adora whispered.
"Especially Hooty!" Eda said, chuckling.
Adora sighed. She walked over, then took one of the comfy chairs. She sat down.
"We were at the Pure n' Straight summer camp for confused girls," Adora whispered. "I smuggled some...books there. Books I wasn't supposed to have. But when they were found, they were near to Kat's bed, and so she got blamed for it. The councilors made her do all the punishment stuff, and...and she ran away, crying, right into the rainstorm. Because I didn't say anything." She closed her eyes. "I was...I let her take the fall for it."
"How old were you?" Eda asked.
"Twelve," Adora whispered.
"Twelve!?" Eda exploded. "Honey, darling, Adora, you...what on the bones of the Titan makes you think that you need to make every right decision when you're
twelve. And what kind of fun summer camp makes a twelve year old feel so bad that they run away into boiling rain!?"
"W-Well, it wasn't boiling," Adora whispered, her voice choked as she sniffled and wiped at her nose. "B-But, uh…" She blinked. "The camp was to make us not gay."
"Oh," Eda said. "Who sent you?"
"My mom…" Adora whispered, looking down at her snotty hand, forlornly.
"So. Let me get this straight," Eda said, her eyes narrowing. "When you were twelve, your
Mom packed you off to the Conformatorium because you like kissing girls – and then made
you feel like
you were at fault because a girl tried to
escape from being tortured into being straight?" She stood, scowling. "Remind me of this next time I visit the Human Realms so I can commit some
arson."
"Oh who!?" Adora asked.
"We'll let that be Eda's little secret for now," Eda said, smirking. "But for now? Say goodbye to your old mom, Adora Human Girl!"
"My name is Gray, Adora Gray," Adora said.
"And say hello...to your
new mom!" Eda slung her arm around Adora, yanking her to her feet and holding her close. "Edalyn, the Owl Woman and your adoptive, but still smoking hot, mom!"
"Buh!?" Adora stammered, flailing her arm wildly.
TO BE CONTINUED
