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bornspellcaster · 11 months

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Little Firefly - Chapter 4

(When the time pool closes before she reaches it and Luz finds herself hopelessly stuck in ancient times, an incident forces her to work together with her enemy to ensure their survival. In the midst of it, Luz learns there may be more than meets the eye to the frigid Puritan, and discovers the real secret to saving The Boiling Isles may just lie in reuniting an estranged family…)

Chapter 4 - Heartfelt Calligraphy

Chapter Index

“Philip what aren’t you telling us?” Luz demanded. “How can you understand a palisman? Why is she here?”

“Why do you even have a palisman?” Eclipse quirked up an eyebrow. “Aren’t ya human?”

”Philip please listen to me!”

“Why are you haunting me so? What do you even want from me?”

“I need to talk to you!” Arakate pleaded with her wielder, but stubborn as ever, Philip jammed his hands over his ears in desperation.

“Philip please-“

“No!” The cacophony of anxious voices demanding answers or pleas to talk to him were threatening to push him into a panic attack. “Nothing you say will make me come home!”

“Caleb’s alive.”

And with those words spoken, Philip felt his world tilt on its axis. His body did too, faltering, and he barely managed to keep himself upright, only succeeding by shakily grabbing a tree for leverage. “No……no, he’s not,” he stammered in low and shaking denial. “I stabbed him. I saw it. I-I saw what I did.”

“You did…but it wasn’t as severe as we thought. You got him in the ribs. It…punctured a lung, but with a lot of rehabilitation-“

“Stop talking .” Philip’s voice was trembling, but the children were just perplexed.

Suddenly Luz remembered the projection from her echo mouse. A silhouette of a thin staff. An arachnid held at the top. “Wait, I’ve seen her before! It really is your palisman, what??”

“No, no it isn’t.” Philip kept trying to press onward, kept trying to press his hands desperately over his ears to drown out the voices tearing into his skull, but it was useless. Arakate’s voice echoed in his skull, attached to his brain like a parasite sucking away his sanity. “And you are LYING, YOU DISGUSTING TERMITE!”

“Philip, you thought you killed him? Is that why you never came home?” Arakate’s voice had dipped sympathetically and he hated her all the more for it.

Luz was piecing more together and she couldn’t believe the results of the puzzle. Witches couldn’t just understand a palisman on a whim. They had to be connected! “You’re a witch??”

“I’m not, and Caleb is DEAD! HE’S DEAD, ARAKATE!” Philip shrieked. Eclipse’s silhouette ducked nervously behind Luz, shadow fingers gripping onto her shoulders.

“Philip he’s not dead! He’s okay! We’ve been searching for you for years! Evelyn-“

“DON’T MENTION HER NAME TO ME! THAT HARLOT TRIED TO KILL ME!”

“Buddy is absolutely wackadoodle,” Eclipse whispered, but Luz felt a growing alarm by the near manic look on the man’s face. She swore she could see the strings of sanity snapping like stale rubber bands as the denial slipped further and further away.

“Philip, she never meant to try and kill you! She only meant it as a warning shot! She’s been searching with Caleb—we’ve all been searching all this time!”

“Shut up.” There was something very dangerous in Philip’s voice now. His back was turned but bristled and rigid and Luz saw his hands trembling.

“Please come home with me!” the spider persisted in desperate chitters that neither bewildered children could understand. “ We want you home! I know things went bad and we all wish it never happened, but Caleb never meant to neglect-“

“I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Arakate wasn’t quick enough to evade what came next and Luz wasn’t quick enough to stop it. Philip’s arm swung back around with a malevolent swing and connected so hard against the spider it slung her into the base of the tree, shooting her like a bullet.

The arachnid nearly engraved into the tree, sticking against the bark for a moment before weakly tumbling down into Luz’s open hands.

“Arakate!” she cried, examining the spider over with Eclipse. The palisman gave a pained chitter and lifted her head reassuringly to Luz. It did nothing to quell either child’s horror or disgust. Luz fell deathly silent while Eclipse's shadow whirled angrily to Philip.

“Big bully!”

“Say another word and I’ll toss that pathetic little cobblestone you live in, into the BOILING SEA!” Philip spat with such vitriol it was fearsome.

Luz still hadn’t turned, hadn’t said a word even as she heard a tearless sniffle come from Eclipse. She pressed Arakate comfortingly to her chest and felt hot tears come to her eyes. “You…” Her voice trembled with ill concealed rage, a knot of anger holding her voice hostage. “You are such a…. a…”

“A what, Luz?” Philip sneered back as he tried to hide the fact that his breathing wasn’t quite steady. “Do try to be creative this time.”

“A LET DOWN!” she finally roared. Neither spoke for a moment and all that could be heard was the wind in the air. No one paid heed to the darkening sky. The man’s sneer slowly faltered in confusion.

“…What are you talking about?”

Luz staggered to her feet, still tightly hugging Arakate to her chest as her other hand placed absently but protectively on Eclipse’s shoulder. “A let down, Philip Wittebane,” she sneered. She felt such a strange sting of betrayal. “I mean….I thought we’d be friends.” She spoke in a strange, low voice. “When I met you I was so….excited! At first, you were everything I thought you’d be.”

Philip didn’t answer. He hadn’t thought much of the girl and her ‘aunt’ at first, even as she’d spoken of knowing him. He hadn’t questioned what she’d meant by it, past experience just preparing to be gawked at. Nettled. Abused.

“When I showed you the light glyph, and you’d gotten so happy looking, and excited and was shocked I relied on glyphs too, I felt… a strange solidarity. And I realized…” She sniffled and she felt so embarrassed by the tears. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry! Seeing them however, he didn’t have that usual smug smirk. He looked away.

“I realized that even though the human realm isn’t really what feels like home anymore, I don’t know…. It was nice to talk to another human. Other than talking to my Mama through a friggin…cube thingy I’ve been here without a door for a while. And…when I found out about you, and knew you were a human that was stuck here too, I could relate to you! I didn’t feel so alone about it! I found your journal and…I was excited!” Her voice cracked. “I felt a kinship! I thought you were cool and I imagined meeting you! I thought we could share our knowledge about magic…” She sniffled. “And….geek about this world together! I thought we could be friends…”

Philip swallowed hard and the ever impassive glacial stare he always had was starting to break. A rumble rolled across the clouds above, but neither seemed to notice. “Guys…” Eclipse began as his eyes slowly drifted up.

“And then it turns out…” Luz’s face twisted up into an ugly, tearful sneer. Bitter. Hateful. Betrayed. How laughable. She felt betrayed by her own false preconceived notions.

“You’re not cool. You’re not nice. You’re just bad. A pathetic bad guy that sacrifices others for his own selfish gain and takes whatever chance he can get to be mean to me. You have no regard for anyone’s lives or feelings! And you've built this entire narrative in your head that witches are evil, just so you can have something to not feel so empty! But you are empty! And…cruel! I don’t know why it seems you had a palisman because you never should have!” Luz went on, unleashing all of her pent up anger, bitterness, and resentment in one verbal onslaught. “I bet you abused her too and she ran away from you! EVERYONE SHOULD!”

Once again all was silent. He was silent. Slowly that fire returned once more in his eyes as his face began to contort. The corners of his mouth trembled as he swallowed and was visibly having a hard time speaking. Luz felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind sweeping their bodies.

“GUYS…” Eclipse warned again, louder, as his shadow spotted illuminated clouds in the distance.

“….Did you ever think,” he began, his voice shaking so badly it was barely intelligible. “…That perhaps I had a different experience, Luz?” He stepped threateningly closer to her and Luz’s hand hovered to her pocket just in case she needed to pull out an emergency glyph.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe things didn’t go for me the way they did for you, Luz?! Maybe I tried, Luz! Maybe I tried to fit in! Maybe I tried to be ‘nice!’ Maybe I tried to give this life that he fucking LEFT ME FOR, a chance!!”

Luz’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off with a tone so sharp it could have sliced the air around them. The utter grief it emanated was soul piercing.

“The proof is in your hands, Luz!” he laughed, almost manically, and brokenly. “I had a palisman! I tried! I tried to see what he did! I almost could, sometimes! But at the end of it all, it was still the life he chose instead of a life with me! That at the end of the day he chose her instead of me! That at the end of the day, I didn’t have his charisma! I didn’t have his social skills!” He laughed again. It was a watery, choked laugh.

“At the end of the day, I wasn’t him! I wasn’t good enough for anyone! I fit in this fucking world even LESS than in the human world and it’s beat me down JUST AS MUCH! So maybe, just maybe, Luz, I DIDN’T HAVE THE HAPPY ENDING YOU DID!”

His scream was raw with anguish and inches away from her face, close enough she nearly felt the spittle from his tightly bared teeth. His blue eyes were wild and nearly deranged…but lined with tears.

Luz somehow maintained her composure, but it took a few seconds to be able to speak. “…Philip—ah!” A sizzling raindrop fell from the clouds and stung her shoulder. More steaming drops began to hit the ground, and easily burned through the thin fabric of their shirts. “Ah! Oh man, now??” Luz groaned as she almost made the stupid mistake of looking up in instinct. Philip barely even flinched as a drop hit his shoulder. His arm. His head.

“I tried to warn you both!” Eclipse exclaimed. Arakate meanwhile chittered as she climbed out of Luz’s hands and hopped into the air. With a sound that sounded like the soft tinkling of a bell, she materialized into her staff.

“Don’t worry, I got this!” Eclipse declared. His shadow lunged above them and expanded out into a canopy. It was a canopy that blanketed a shadow down on them but other than that, the drops fell right through and onto their prone forms. “Nuts.”

“Ow ow! We need to find shelter!” Luz cried, and she jumped onto the spider’s staff, gathering the celestial’s stone in her other arm. She didn’t really expect she’d have to urge their other companion to hurry up in a burning thunderstorm…but she didn’t feel the shift of his weight. He hadn’t gotten on the staff.

“Philip?” Luz frowned as she glanced behind her and just saw him…standing there, in an almost dissociated state. More and more of his clothes were steaming now, and her eyes widened in alarm. “You’re burning! I’m burning! Let’s GO!” She gave one swift yank and he fell onto the staff, haphazardly gripping it as they started to fly like an arrow through the air, low and under as many trees as possible.

“I see a pretty big tree over there!” Eclipse pointed to one of the larger trees in the forest, which seemed to have a thankfully deep hollow. It was deep enough that they could comfortably squeeze into it until the storm passed, so they flew into it. A tight squeeze, but it was better than nothing.

They tucked into the crevice, and Luz pulled out several light glyphs. Floating, bright little orbs illuminated their small shelter to reveal every ring of the tree and patches of blue fungus and moss.

“Ughhh…if I was out of this dumb rock I could literally push away those clouds! Guess we gotta wait it out,” Eclipse sighed in annoyance.

Philip didn’t respond. He didn’t even react when his spider comfortingly crawled up onto his shoulder and rubbed her head against his cheek. He was drawn up quietly with Caleb’s jacket wrapped tightly around him, and his arms around his knees. His eyes were heavy with depression….and defeat. It was a disconcerting sight…and she didn’t like it.

I…broke him. Why did she feel so guilty? He deserved to be yelled at, he deserved to be put in his place. Yet...

“….Do you want to talk about it?” Luz finally asked gently.

He didn’t answer for about a solid minute. “I…” Philip’s voice had lost the superiority he always tried to hide behind. Luz knew it was always a facade but only now was she realizing just how fragile of a facade it had been. “…I don’t know how.”

“…You can start anywhere,” she encouraged with a soft smile. “Seems…there’s a lot you’ve had bottled up, huh?” He didn’t respond, but the crease of his eyebrows said it all. “…Why don’t you tell me about her?” She gestured her head over to Arakate, who was busily nuzzling the man’s face.

After a moment, Philip tried to weakly rebuild the ice around his heart as a hand pushed her off his shoulder. To his credit, it was barely more than a nudge. “It’s nothing. She’s just a spider. She’s just a palisman.”

“But you can understand her,” Luz pressed, wondering again what the soft chitters of the spider meant. Bless her little soul, despite such callous and cruel treatment, she was still trying to comfort him. “I’m sure you know that….you can’t just understand a palisman all willy nilly. You two are connected.”

He petulantly tried to turn away from them, and he tried to tune them out with the rhythmic pelting of rain, but it was useless. “Why does it matter?” he finally asked quietly. His voice was quiet. It was empty and yet lamenting. “Why do you care?” he tried to snap, hoping if he was cruel enough she would stop nettling him and lose that look of sympathy. He hated it. He wanted her annoyance back and her hatred. At least that didn’t make him want to fall into the temptation of actually trusting someone again.

“Well…” Luz sighed and tried for a wayward smile. “We have time to kill and I hate awkward silences,” she tried to joke. Her smile fell. “…And because I think you’re in a lot of pain, and…maybe I can help.”

He laughed bitterly. “I doubt that.” Luz continued to just look at him, her soft brown eyes piercing into his defense. She silently waited. Eclipse silently waited. Arakate was just nuzzling his leg.

“…I never made Arakate,” he said quietly. “She found me. I think it was about my third month here. I couldn’t shake her, and she just kept following me around even when I told her I didn’t want her. I wanted nothing to do with anything here.” He gave a bitter laugh. “But honestly the company was nice, with Caleb so involved with his new lovely family.” As he mentioned his brother’s name, his voice cracked and trembled.

“Caleb…” Luz stroked her fingers along the spider’s soft and furry back, feeling the exoskeleton underneath. Arakate purred and leaned into the touch. “He was…?”

“My brother,” Philip said hollowly. His mouth trembled and barely turned up at the edges, in sorrowful nostalgia. “My world…and I was sure I was his.” He sighed. “It was just us growing up…and it was supposed to stay that way.” Luz winced internally at the possessive implications there but let him go on.

“We had issues fitting in. Kindness was offered to us by the townspeople, yes….but only if we conformed to their ways of life. Acceptance was highly conditional, to say the least. Consequences were dire if you slipped, and we met them frequently. ….Especially me,” he said softly. “I was the outcast that never knew how to socialize properly. At least, in the ways society deemed to be so.”

He didn’t notice Luz give a quiet gasp, or for her hold on both Arakate, and Eclipse, who had settled in her lap, to tighten. That pang of sorrowful kinship that she was sure he’d squashed, returned.

“We were expected to participate in the town’s practices. The witch hunts. At the very least, everyone was expected to show up for them, and it was considered highly suspicious if you didn’t. Suspicion could be the difference between being bound in the stocks or burned at the stake if they thought you were with them.”

Luz had gone a deathly white and an uncomfortable squirming from Arakate suggested her grip had become far too tight in her distress. This time Philip heard the sucked in gasp of air from his young companion and turned his head. He looked strangely apologetic.

“This is probably a lot to take in. We can stop.”

“…I’m peachy,” the child finally wheezed out. Eclipse nuzzled further into Luz and they looked concerned. “Are humans fireproof?”

“…No, little glow worm, they aren’t,” Luz strained out, forcing a smile for the confused cosmic child’s benefit. She swallowed down acidic bile as she tried not to picture the grisly thoughts in her head. She’d taken history, and she knew about the witch hunts in this time, and the witch hunts that paranoia and racism had sparked throughout the world.

…What was perhaps the worst realization however was that even if witches had likely been victimized in these hunts, she knew about The Boiling Isles and her own realm’s history of intersecting well enough to know that the number of ‘witches’ prosecuted couldn’t possibly have been that many ‘witches’ at all.

…Humans had been burning their own kind. She wondered if Philip had figured that part out yet, and if he hadn’t she wasn’t about to point it out. By the titan, what was left of his sanity wouldn’t survive it. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.

“…He was nineteen when he met her. Evelyn.” Philip’s face screwed up in disgust. “She came around a few times. She hid her true hideous form under one of those insidious and cloying stones.”

“Concealment stones?” Luz asked flatly.

“Yes, those,” he huffed. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “She charmed him. She dazzled him with tricks directly against everything we’d been taught.”

“I mean, it didn’t sound like you liked it when you were talking about it,” she pointed out and raised an eyebrow when he faltered a bit. “The witch hunts.”

“I was a six year old watching people be tortured, that was a bit different. The chase itself was exhilarating at first. …At least until you knew what was going to happen to them. O-of course I was ignorant at the time. Obviously the clergy was attempting to purge evil, but at that age it’s just hard to witness that in person.”

Luz’s temper flared but for once she bit back a heated remark. The only reason she did was because she could see a spark of turmoil in his gaze as he spoke such ugly words. It was turmoil that perhaps he didn’t realize. It was a turmoil that strangely, she hadn’t seen from him before.“….Just tell me about Evelyn.” And why did that name really ring a bell…?

“They met a few times in the human world. Apparently she’d come around, I don’t know, scouting out the best victim I guess.” He didn’t miss the way Luz rolled her eyes. “She always tried to talk to me as well but once I knew what she was about I wasn’t falling for it.”

Luz wasn’t sure why again tried reasoning with him right now, but maybe seeing how unsure he’d been when he spoke of the witch hunts before gave her some more confidence. “Did you ever consider maybe Evelyn was trying to be nice to you?”

“No,” he scoffed. “I know she’s always wanted me out of the way.” He wasn’t budging on this hill yet. It seemed he wasn’t as pliable right now as Luz had hoped. “She…took him. He left with her.” His voice cracked and Luz couldn’t help the sympathy she felt. His wide blue eyes that looked to her, so soul crushed, so vulnerable and lost, didn’t help the pity. “Do you have any idea what that’s like, Luz?” he asked softly. “Being…abandoned like that, and having the one person you trusted more than anything, the only person you ever had…walk away from you?”

“…No,” Luz said softly.

“He…” His breathing was struggling to remain steady. “He didn’t even wait until I was an adult to leave me.”

She felt for him, despite her dislike for him. She couldn’t imagine the only one she’d ever known as a parent walking away on her, but part of her wondered if she was getting the full story. Or if perhaps, he was interpreting something wrong. It wasn’t as if she could really trust his judgment on things. What was clear though was he was hurting, and had been hurting for a long time, and…Luz felt bad for him.

“But…you found him again, right? Your story suggests so.”

Sighing, Philip traced a pattern in the damp bark of the tree. “I did, eventually.” He made a face of derision. “I was terrified when I got here, and predictably, I was pushed around about as much as I was in the human world. Things may have changed in your time it sounds, but being a human in this world can be horrible. Even Caleb had to work to gain the respect of the townspeople. Humans are seen as lesser beings by many, due to the lack of natural magical capability.”

Feel like they might also be bitter that if any of their kind did slip to the human realm, they were probably hung or burned… Luz decided to leave that unsaid. “Well actually I was seen as lesser by some, at first.”

“I was pushed around by savages, and by monsters. I knew nothing about this world and found myself in all sorts of horrific situations, but eventually I found a fire glyph when I happened upon…a fire bee hive.”

“Ouch,” Luz winced.

“I was tired of being pushed around and wanted some advantage…and I made a fatal error.” He rolled up his sleeve and Luz let off a sound of repulsed horror. She attempted to keep it discreet so as not to make him even more self conscious. Frankly she didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed before, specifically since the marks were glowing a dim red and orange, like a flicker cast off by a fire.

“Whoa. How’d you get those tattoos?” Eclipse hovered around the man, inspecting the marks. His eyes widened after a moment. “Why would you carve glyphs on your arms??”

“Philip, why did you think that was a good idea??” Luz echoed Eclipse incredulously.

“I was a teenager in what I thought was hell, and I just wanted some sort of means to protect myself! …They act up when I get too stressed sometimes. When you get used to the pain and evening your emotions, it can be more manageable,” He sighed. “And….treating it. I was a novice to the mechanics of this world when I got here, but in retrospect I probably should have considered the ramifications it would have to draw symbols on me that consume all it touches. …I was a bit slow.”

“It took a while to find my brother, and…when I did I discovered the wench….carrying.” He made a face, like the mere mention of her name was some blasphemy to him. “Caleb seemed so happy to see me at first but things were never the same once I found out he’d chosen this wretched place over coming back with me. He…” His voice became smaller again, losing its vice. “…I guess he hated living with me…”

“You chose to stay there? Did you hate living with me that much?” Luz could hear the conversation in her head as easy as she could hear her own mother’s heartbroken sniffle. She felt tears press behind her eyes. “…I’m sure he didn’t,” Luz said softly.

“When it became clear he wouldn’t go back with me, I obviously wasn’t leaving my big brother’s side, not for a second. I didn’t trust him not to get bitten by a bloody basilisk if I didn’t! He encouraged me to try and make some….friends. To try and give this place a chance.”

Philip’s grimy nails dug into the soil and clutched fistfuls of dirt as he let off a frustrated growl. “And I tried to, Luz! I tried, but how could I? How was I supposed to, knowing he chose this place instead of a place with me? Knowing that he left me to that hell—for—for this one!” he spluttered angrily. “And then I come back after my abandonment and I’m expected to just get over it! To just accept the fact he…he had a whole family without me,” he whispered.

“A whole bloody witch family!” he continued with a broken laugh. “I stayed with them for a while. What else could I do? Varuka is The Boiling Isles most powerful healer, supposedly. When Caleb learned of my curse he had her and her daughter Kiki oversee my curse’s outbursts. They tamed them down with powerful soothing spells. The soothing spells used to be enough but…” He sighed. “They’re not anymore.” His nails crumpled the fabric of his sleeves in distress. He strangely looked away from Arakate. “I treated myself shortly before you showed up.”

He tried to ignore the way she nuzzled his leg. He tried to ignore the feeling of comfort hidden deep in the niche of his stony heart. “Arakate…found me when I was off on a walk. She wouldn’t leave me alone! She kept…following me, and talking to me. Caleb was shocked I could understand her, and when I found out the significance of talking to palisman, I was confused myself. I didn’t understand why we supposedly had a ‘connection.’ I didn’t want her.”

His eyebrows creased and the hard line of his mouth softened as he looked at the spider. “…But I felt alone. Caleb promised me when I got here that he’d make up for our lost time and we’d be together more…but of course all he cares about is his pregnant witch fiancé.” He sneered.

“It…all just built up in me. I couldn’t handle it. My brother told me he understood it would take time for me to ‘come around’,” he scoffed. As if he’d planned to at all! “And yet he got impatient that I want nothing to do with this wretched witch family of his. That he LEFT me for! How could anyone expect me to just be okay with it?!” His voice rose in grief. “I mean I find him and he’s started a whole life without me in it! And in a matter of months—I’m supposed to make peace with that?! I’m supposed to make peace with that EVER?!”

The fury of his tone echoed through the wood and rain, and both children were quiet for a moment. “…So what happened after all that?” Luz asked, and she was dreading the answer. “How did you end up out here?”

“…It finally boiled over one day,” he said quietly, swallowing and suppressing a shudder and trying to keep the images at bay. The second worst day of his life. “That wench was about eight months with child, I believe. We argued about it...badly. My curse was flaring up at the time as well. He told me to calm down, but I didn’t want to.”

A moist shine came to his eyes as he clearly struggled back the grief from falling down his face. “I WANTED to be angry. I wanted to lash out. I wanted to be destructive and break things and…” He swallowed. “Hurt. I deserved that! I was blinded by my anger, and felt my curse flaring up but I didn’t care to stop it at the time…and I didn’t think about what it would cost.”

He didn’t look at her. “…I came to my senses too late. The knife was already in him.” He heard Luz gasp in horror. “Evelyn attacked me, and screamed at me to leave. All I saw was him falling to the ground, and all I felt was the pain from her blow.”

“…That’s why I hear you crying about him at night,” Luz finally said quietly, her eyes wide. She didn’t imagine it was this extreme. She tried to find something else to say but it was hard to come up with a response to a near murder confession. The forlorn spider by the man’s side was now nuzzled up against the fabric of his coat. “…Why don’t you go home?”

“I don’t have a portal?” He rolled his eyes to the insufferable question. Luz didn’t dignify the ignorance with acknowledgement.

“To them,” she told him, undaunted as he spun around to stare at her as if she had three heads. “I mean…Arakate is telling you that Caleb survived,” she said gently. “He’s missing you. It’s gotta be scary, I know…” She gave an encouraging smile. “But you have a whole family wa-“

“I do NOT have a family!” the man snapped. “Th-they are not my family! They are simply people I was forced to put up with so I could be with Caleb! They took him from me and then they tried to manipulate me to trust them! And then they hurt me and sent me away!”

“Philip…” Luz knew she was treading dangerous waters here with this, but it was the most vulnerable she’d seen her frosty companion, and she didn’t know when she might get another shot at trying to have a genuine heart to heart. “…Did you ever stop to think that the real source of your hate is…the bias from your pain?”

“What are you talking about?” he growled, half of his face buried within his knees and with reproachful eyes targeting her suspiciously.

“You’re hurting, and you’re….sad,” Luz told him, undeterred by the glare. “And I get it, but you’ve yet to give me an actual reason for why you hate this world beyond feeling betrayed.”

Slowly he turned to her, gawking. “…Luz we’re in a tree hollow to prevent ourselves from burning alive because it’s raining.”

“Okaaay…so the weather can be a bit inconvenient.” Luz gave a casual shrug. Burning rain was barely more than a trivial annoyance to her at this point. Maybe that was a bit of a concern. “But honestly it doesn’t sound like you were too happy in the human realm.”

The severe glare on Philip’s face seemed to fall away, with his shoulders that sagged in defeat. “Maybe I’m not happy anywhere.”

“Well….you’re definitely not happy in a cave,” Luz pointed out softly. “Hiding, and alone.”

His face fell quietly back to rest in his arms, perched over the bumps of his kneecaps. Half lidded eyes gazed uncaringly out at the steam formed by the pelting rain as Arakate continued to chitter noncommittal things to the three of them and sing to the sound of the rain.

“Ya know…a palisman’s form or behaviour can coincide strongly with their wielder’s.” Luz smiled at Philip and inched closer to the man, offering a palm to the inquisitive arachnid to skitter upon. “The connection is based on what the person’s true desire is. What’s your deepest desire, Philip?”

“I want to get out of this place with my brother,” Philip growled.

“I don’t think that’s what you really want. …There’s a heavy prejudice attached to spiders, mainly because of how people are so misinformed of them, and they’re frightened of them based on this prejudice. People see a spider and automatically think they’re going to be attacked, when actually spiders are incredibly docile.”

She rose a brow to Philip and gave a big breath, and one that carried a bit of a teasing smirk. “And they can bite. Man can they ever bite if not handled right. Can even be venomous and deadly. They’re associated pretty well with the ‘villain’ trope in modern day too.” He obviously didn’t understand that reference. “And to top it off, Arakate is a jumping spider! They’re attributed to having some of the highest intelligence in the bug kingdom! They’re one of the only ones to possess a neo cor-“

“OH OH!” Eclipse suddenly piped up, with the loud, unfiltered bluntness of a child. “And some of them are really hairy! Like you!” He poked Philip’s beard, who went scarlet in embarrassment.

Luz blinked and burst out into laughter. “Honestly yeah, you need to shave my guy.” Luz smirked at Philip and after a long moment there was a small and almost shy one from the Wittebane. So minuscule you could easily miss it. It faded just as quickly and he was back to glaring at nothing. Luz decided not to probe further on what he’d told her. Rome wasn’t built all in one night, and working away at the source of this man’s hate would take time….

Arakate was still attempting to coax anything but that downtrodden expression from the man with various nuzzles and chitters and even soothingly pressing her mandibles to his forehead now as she trilled—something that always used to comfort him. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect, but she wasn’t giving up. She lit up with sudden mischief.

“It’s weird you’d have a spider of all things,” Eclipse hummed. His shadow hung from the ceiling of the hollow like a little monkey. “I would assume you’d have like…I don’t know—hey! What’s the grumpiest and biggest buzzkill kind of creature you can have as a palisman?”

And in direct contrast to the entity’s question, both children were blindsided to hear… giggling that burst out of the Wittebane. He was visibly trying to keep it quiet and muffled behind his hands, but Luz and Eclipse watched, baffled as he squirmed and started laughing.

“Hey, where’d our spider pal go?” Eclipse wondered. That’s when they saw not only was he squirming, his jacket seemed to be as well!

“Ph-Philip?” Luz snorted herself into giggles as well, finding his laughter was infectious. She realized this was the first time she’d ever heard his genuine laugh. Not one from mocking her, or a cold chuckle, but actual laughter. It was so bright, goofy and boyish, and free. It renewed her with hope. Seeing him with his palisman filled her with hope…

“STAHAP, YOU BLAHASTED SPIDER!” Philip squealed out, red faced in embarrassment as he finally managed to reach into his shirt and extract a very smug and triumphant looking spider. “You little pest—seriously! After all this time you still go for that?” he asked, incredulous. Arakate chirped and nuzzled her mandibles to Philip’s cheek, and he tried to cover it, but there was another slight smile.

Luz’s mind was alight with the possibilities this new tidbit of information gave her. Philip Wittebane—the grumpy ass snob that had been tormenting her left and right since she got here—was this ticklish? Oh excellent…

“Really? That’s what I could have done every time you annoyed me or were an ass?” Luz teased the crimson and scowling man. “That’s what I can still do, while I have you trapped in this confined space with no escape…?”

“Don’t even think it-“

Luz outstretched her arms and wiggled menacing fingers to psyche him out. The panic on his face just made her burst out laughing, even as his foot lightly kicked her back into a patch of mushrooms. “Sleep with one eye open, Witte-bane of my existence.”

She straightened her posture and grimaced feeling a moist squish of the shrooms touching her legs. The mushrooms were blue with small purple speckles and she coughed on the spores they expelled. “Ugh! That smells like gasoline!”

Philip leaned over curiously to get a good look at the patch. “How curious, I don’t believe I’ve seen those before!” He was quick to whip out his journal and unclamped the leather bindings to flip to a new page.

Luz cleaned the irritating spores off of her khakis and crawled her way over to sit beside him. Closer, he noted, actually. He wasn’t sure if it was the forced proximity of the claustrophobic space, or her tendency for affection.

“Gotta admit, I really envy your writing man,” Luz mused, leaning so far over towards the book that her hair kept falling onto the pages, and his hands. He eventually gave up trying to write through her hair and pestering, sighing and staring upward. “Do you…think you can teach me how to do calligraphy as nicely as that?”

“Is there even a chance you let me get this done anyway?”

“Not a chance, no.”

He rolled his eyes but offered a blank page of paper for the girl and pressed his quill into her hand. With gusto, the child eagerly began to scrawl at the page, and he frowned scoldingly.

“Slow down! Don’t just go at it with abandon and write full words! I mean look at that, a chicken could scratch better with its feet!” he scoffed. Philip blinked when his careless remark seemed to make a deep impact. He saw the flicker of hurt in Luz’s eyes, and for once…an ugly feeling crawled in his gut. It was a look that resonated, one of a child conditioned by years of bullying.

“I’m sorry,” Luz said quietly as she tried to mask her fragile smile. “I was always told in school I had a messy hand and my handwriting wasn’t ‘up to par.’ I’m probably not cut out for this, heh…”

Chewing on his lip, Philip considered a more tactful approach. It certainly wasn’t how Caleb would teach him. “Well…no,” he tried, a bit softer. “You just need to practice some simple strokes to get a feel of it, that’s all. Some curves, some crosses, and some circles. Try those as warm ups.” He put the quill back in her hands, and with a slow smile, Luz took it.

“Put down a hairline. Basically, give me a very, very thin line—no— try again. You’re putting far too much pressure down, and it’s making it too thick.”

Luz nervously repeated what she’d done before, but eased up on the stroke. Philip’s gaze was softer as he observed her, mainly because he could tell he was distressing the poor kid with his expectations.

“…How’s this?” Luz meekly held up a sheet of paper for him to examine. The line was very blobby. He picked up on this and tutted.

“That one isn’t bad, but try again and try to keep a consistent pressure.”

Eclipse hovered above his companions and made a small raspberry sound with his mouth. “Writing stuff sounds boring! It sounds like…school, bleh.” Still, they watched and couldn’t help but find their interest a bit piqued by the gliding strokes through ink. “…Ou, that’s a pretty one!” he praised.

As Philip guided and observed Luz’s work, he felt a strange welling of nostalgia. He remembered sitting at their oak table back at their cabin, his brother perched over his shoulder as he would lovingly instruct an eager six year old on how to write his name, tussling his hair and tickling him now and then to be silly.

Was this what it was like, watching someone flourish under your tutelage?

No one even realized the boiling rain had stopped long ago, or how long they were sitting there, talking and writing through pieces of paper.

“You ready to try some letters then?”

“Yeah!” Luz gushed. She touched the quill back down to the paper, and to her disappointment the ink seemed to bleed together from the pressure she was applying. She was about to apologize , and that’s when Philip reached out. Luz expected him to take the quill in exasperation, but…he didn’t. With one of his laced gloves, Philip took one of her smaller hands in his own to guide the process.

Unlike before, this hand didn’t crackle with flames or shoot out vines or shards of ice. It didn’t squeeze her or tear her collar or throw her to the ground. It didn’t yank her along when she could barely keep up, and it didn’t recoil from her own touch. It was soft, and satin, and it was warm as both of their hands glided along the paper in a much neater line over the margins.

“Can you teach me callig-errfee too?” Eclipse asked hopefully as his shadow squeezed up against Luz.

“You can’t even pick up a quill!” Philip exclaimed.

“Wow, just hit me where it hurts.” Luz however just laughed.

“Well done child. That actually looks like an ‘L’ this time. Not bad, and I didn’t even guide you with that one.”

“Thanks! Ou, I’m gonna try to write your name now!”

“Caleb! Caleb, look! I wrote your name!”

“Hey! Hey that’s pretty good Pip…”

(Wow it looks even longer on tumblr. So much for this chapter being immediate, but in my defence I take a long time to draw. Every chapter will have an illustration from now on, although likely not as detailed because that one took me days. It’ll kinda be like a graphic novel.

And we mark the turning point, or at least the beginning of it. Philip is a stubborn ass, but maybe there’s still hope for him. Maybe Luz can shift something in him still. …Maybe she already has.

I wanted to play a bit on the prejudice that humans might face in The Boiling Isles, because even though I know it served just to show the narrative of ‘witches were always wonderful and Philip was just an evil bigot’, I didn’t like that shallow take and I’m inclined to believe that the humans have not always had an easy time, and basically tackle racism on both sides. Even Luz faced a bit at first, and I mean the line ‘here to gawk? I may not have a bile sac but I do have dignity’ came from somewhere.

Anyway, the next chapter is where things start to get real exciting, and we’ll be meeting the rest of the party soon ;] Hope you’re all prepared, cause Philip won’t be…..)

#toh fanfic #the owl house fanfic #philip wittebane #luz #the collector #AND THIS ONE HAS THE ILLUSTRATION I MADE C:#caleb wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #(verse | little firefly)

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