Video UN: linda_bruja

[a_cute_batata]

WHO: Luz and the network
WHERE: Around the city
WHEN: 5/1
WHAT: Currently trying not to freak out!
WARNINGS: Energetic teenager?

[The video starts, and there's the girl, sitting cross legged, booklet open as she is still trying to read as much as she can, and then she looks up, a brave smile on despite it not quite reaching her eyes].

Hi, uh, city dwellers! Luz Noceda here, apparently new, uh, tourist that somehow dropped here by mistake! At least, that's what I WOULD think, but now that I have this book and device, inclined to believe I don't just get to skip and jump back home. Heh! Not the first time that's happened!

[Joking helps, because OH BOY is Luz quietly trying to keep it together].

Did everyone get here through a kinda maze? I'm going to guess it wasn't the same, since my getting here was through a place I'd been to before, with some pretty choice memories. RUDE ones too, because I'm kinda already having a bad day, didn't really need the reminder about all the stuff on my mind, thanks! Nosy...labyrinth...thing.

Anyway! Pretty sure I'm lost, and I don't think a random girl asking strangers what the deets are is going to be really appreciated, SOOO I figured, why not go to my trusted friend, the internet! Or intranet, I guess? It seems like this thing is localized, right?

Help?

Comments

[a_cute_batata]

No! I am very much not good! At all! You're Eda, the Owl lady, aren't you? Greatest witch on the Boiling Isles? Bounty on your head?

Any of this ringing a bell?

[traaaaaash]

Well, my name's Eda, and some people call me the Owl Lady. But what's the Boiling Isles?

How very John Mulaney of you Luz

[a_cute_batata]

That's where you're from! At least...ugh. All right, let's just forget about that right now.

[One horribly awful revelation at a time please]!

So you don't know me, we just met. Sure. To answer your question. I am fourteen. I am new in town and I am very confused. I went through some weird goobly-goobly place and wound up here, in this city, and I have no idea why or where I'm even supposed to go from here.

Care to help a fallen traveler?

POOR KID

[traaaaaash]

[ Oh boy.

Eda does not consider herself the motherly type. But fourteen. And all alone. Nope, she's gotta do something.

She sighs. ]

Wanna stay at my place? At least until you got a better idea about... [ gestures ] everything?

Re: POOR KID

[a_cute_batata]

[Luz looks up, and all the bravado she had after going into the Emperor's mind and seeing hunter almost die, him saving her, then having a panic attack and running away after awful revelations, only to wander through a labyrinth of her own mistakes and find nothing familiar? Gone. Now she's just scared and tired and confused and she just wants things to make sense. So have a wibbly Luz, just hanging on].

Yes please.

[traaaaaash]

[ Oh no oh no oh no the kid is emotional. Eda has to bite the inside of her cheek to not start freaking out a little herself, because she is so not equipped for this.

She puts on a smile for the kid, though. ]

Why don't you come to my shop, then? I just gotta wrap up here. I'll text you the location.

You can do that, right? Or do I gotta come pick you up?

[a_cute_batata]

[Look, she knows this is somehow not HER Eda, but it also so much like her Eda that Luz can't help herself. She could hide her feelings from Hunter, even people here, but not from her Owl lady mom, even if she didn't remember her.

Luz was not that strong, not when so much had happened she barely had time to breathe].

I could try to find you? Does this thing have a map?

[traaaaaash]

I mean, your phone's gotta have one. ... you know what smartphones are and how they work, right?

[a_cute_batata]

Oh yes, of course! That's pretty much what this is...right. Ok. Fiddle around with this and...uh huh.

Ok! Where are you located again?

[traaaaaash]

Here, I'll text you. [ And she does. ] Ask me if you have questions, okay?

[a_cute_batata]

I will. Thanks Eda.

[Gosh, this was just...not going to be a good time for her. Everything was strange, and Eda didn't even remember her. But it was still HER, she still recognized Eda, even with the ears and the eyes. She didn't doubt for a second it was her Eda.

Which was why this hurt even more, but better AN Eda than NO Eda].

action;

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda wasn't done with her day, but, well, helping the kid takes priority right now. She brings everything in order, balances her checkbook, cleans up and all that, and then is left pondering. Should she get something to eat for the girl? She does have some cookies and the like behind the counter, but she doesn't know how hungry Luz will be.

Eh. They can figure it out.

She sits on her stool behind the counter and scrolls through social media as she waits for Luz to arrive. ]

Re: action;

[a_cute_batata]

[It was weird, feeling like she was going all the way back to the starting point with Eda. This was familiar, but not where she wanted to be, considering how much she and Eda had gone through. It was almost funny that a human version of Eda would still basically be the same, but she wanted to desperately talk to her about everything that was happening here, and Eda would have been her first choice.

She was still here though, managing to give her mentor a smile as she looked over the store].

Nice to see you...again. What exactly do you sell here?

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda has a little bell installed over the door to ring whenever someone enters or leaves, so she hears Luz's arrival well and clear. She looks up to find -- oh, yep, that is a young teenager for sure. Young enough that she should not be running around all on her own out there.

Shoot. She's really not getting out of this one.

Eda looks up from her phone and observes her own merchandise. ]

Little bit of everything. You can look around if you want.

[a_cute_batata]

I will!

[Aw, this was exactly the kind of thing Eda use to peddle back in the Isles! Granted, she probably actually knew what most of these "human" things did, considering she seemed to be human herself now. Luz was still trying to wrap her head around that though. What sort of weird place was this, and if Eda was human now, why was Hunter still (mostly) the same]?

Oh, racoon tarot cards! I just met a guy that might appreciate these! How do you pay for things in this world? And you have so many cool creepy stuff! It's great!

[Some things just never change].

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda is honestly surprised at the sheer enthusiasm this kid exudes. ]

Dollars. Just. Just dollars. Do you not have those where you're from?

[a_cute_batata]

Where I'm from originally? Yes. In the Boiling Isles though? It's snails.

N-nevermind! So things cost money here. How do the kids that arrive here make do?

[How did Hunter]??

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda shrugs. ]

No idea. Work jobs like regular teens, maybe? Heck if I know what the kids are up to these days.

[ A beat, then she looks up. ]

Wait, so you're not originally from this "Boiling Isles" place?

[a_cute_batata]

I'll have to ask him. I don't even know where he's staying! Gosh, I don't know where he was staying the last time I saw him!

[Not the castle anymore, that was for sure. Poor Hunter].

No, I'm from Earth. Gravesfield, Connecticut to be exact. That's actually where I ran into Owlbert and eventually found you. The Boiling Isles version anyway.

[traaaaaash]

[ Well, that's... a lot of info to take in. ]

Connecticut, huh. Well, we do have that here. And the other forty-nine states.

[a_cute_batata]

Oh right. We're in a kind of America here, right?

[Hopefully a nicer version].

But magic exists here?

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda leans in conspiratorially. ]

It does, but not everyone's aware of it. Most people aren't. But it's all around us.

[a_cute_batata]

How do you ignore magic?

Didn't someone tell me people come from the spiritual whoozy whatsis all the time?

[traaaaaash]

Yeah, but -- they don't ignore it, most people just don't see it. They don't have the sense for the supernatural.

[a_cute_batata]

Really? Ugh, that sounds like MY world.

[That was just. Dumb. So DUMB].

But you can see it then, right?