#Made these last year so long ago that Luz doesn’t have sun moon earrings like in my other art yet

[amoritasart]

Super old sketches of an AU idea I liked quite a bit.

[rohad93]

Worth the Fight: Chap 3

They decide not to stick around the dark, beast filled, woods after the cockatrice attack and quickly packed up and headed back out on the path toward their destination, it's still pitch black other than the faint light coming from the moon, but Luz's light enchantment lasts the rest of the night until the first rays of dawn begin to streak across the sky, lighting up the seemingly endless stretches of wheat fields. Something Eda silently finds odd. When I spell is cast, how long are powerful it is depended on how much magic the user put into it, but before this moment, Luz had never been able to do any magic no matter how much she tried, so Eda isn't sure how Luz controls it, if at all, and it's just random. She doesn't know what to expect from her apprentice anymore.

Luz was tired, very tired, but she was still riding the remaining high of her very first monster-slaying, retaining just enough energy to keep her eyes open and her feet moving, but only just. It was an effort, but she somehow managed.

She can see the shadows of the city long before they reach it, the sun rising behind it cast long dark shadows across the fields and woods that surround its tall, stone walls.

The closer they get the wider Luz's eyes grow, along with Eda's smirk, as she watched her apprentice out of the corner of her eye.

It was much bigger than any of the other towns they had been to over the years. Its streets’ are paved with cobblestone and packed with people and vendors of all shapes and sizes, selling every kind of good Luz could imagine, and some she couldn't.

She stared in awe at the towering stone buildings all around her as they stopped in the center of the busy market.

“Welcome to the putrid, capital city of The Boiling Isles; Bonesburrough!” Eda held out a hand at everything.

"This is amazing!" Luz bounced excitedly on her toes and she looked around at all the hustle and bustle of the city's inhabitants. Very few people were even giving her, distinctly rounded ears, a second look as they made their way through the crowds, most people moving out of their way as King walked along beside them, looking almost bored at all the people that were quick to jump out of his path. "Are you finally going to tell me why we're here?" Luz looked up her mentor, eyes full of questions.

"Oh, right, I got word that a bunch of prominent and rich noble families need more hands guarding their shipments and things lately since the war seems to be ramping up. It's boring grunt work, but I was told that it pays exceptionally well," Eda explained as they moved through the market.

"Is that where we're going now?" Luz tilted her head questioningly.

"Nope, we're heading for the blacksmiths' first," Eda said, grinning down at her. “It’s time.”

"Time for what?" Luz's eyes narrowed in confusion, making Eda chuckle as she looked down at Luz’s thoughtful expression.

"After what happened last night, I think you're finally ready for your own sword; a real sword." Eda can barely finish the sentence before Luz is making an excited, high-pitched, squealing noise that makes King’s ear pin back flat against his head and Eda wince.

“I finally get my own sword!?” She was practically vibrating with giddy excitement. Eda slapped her hands on her shoulders to still her, the kid was making her tired with all her bouncing. All her exhaustion from last night has vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Yes, Luz. You’re getting your own sword, but you gotta understand that means from this point on you’re gonna have to pull your own weight from here on out, make money and feed yourself, it’s time for you to start the next part of your training; experience. You're going to start taking and completing jobs, you can't buy your own food, you don't eat.” She explained seriously, but still, Luz is beaming from ear to ear at the news and Eda rolled her eyes. They would need to revisit this discussion after Luz had calmed and was actually listening to her. "Come on, Kid." Eda waved a hand, beckoning her apprentice to follow.

They can smell the smithy long before they can see it, though they can see the smoke that billows from the open building even before that. King’s nose wrinkles at the odor.

The forge is billowing red hot flames when they approach and a lone figure in a leather apron, gloves, and plate metal mask is standing over it, running a pole through the fire inside, turning over the blistering hot coals and causing a fresh wave of heat to blast into the air.

"As if it wasn't hot enough around here…," Eda grumbled and wiped at the sweat that had broken out across her brow.

The figure looked up from the flames and shut the heavy metal door on the furnace, sucking some of the heat out of the air. They stepped back and lifted up the metal mask.

A young woman, maybe just a few years older than Luz at the most, is grinning at them, with soot smudged cheeks and dark brown hair tied up in a bun. What immediately catches Luz’s attention is the metal hook pierced through her right earlobe.

“Welcome to Griffin Smithy, what can I do for ya?” she asked, looking between the two of them, her eyes lingered on Luz’s ears for a half a second longer before meeting her eyes,

“Need a sword for the kid,” Eda said, hooking a thumb at Luz who is again, grinning madly with excitement.

‘Well, you came to the right place, come on back and I’ll show ya what we got.” The young woman nodded as she walked into the shop. Luz turned to Eda just in time to catch the bag of jingling silver coins Eda had thrown at her.

“Go on, Luz.” Eda crossed her arms and jerked her head toward the shop. “His majesty and I are going to go get our stay at the Redstone inn figured out, meet us there when you're finished,” she grunted and Luz smiled, nodding as she followed the blacksmith into the shop, tying the bag to her belt.

“Oooh!” Luz’s eyes lit up.

The walls were covered in all manner of weapons, many Luz was familiar with. Swords, maces, pikes and daggers, and some she couldn’t even guess at, like the long wooden shaft with a large circle of metal at the end filled with spikes.

“Neat…,” she hummed to herself as she moved around the room. “Oh!” She spotted something interesting from across the room and trotted over to the wall covered in hanging swords. In front of her was a sword longer than she was tall with a flamberge blade. Her face reflected back at her in the shiny polished metal. She grinned to herself as she wrapped her hands around the hilt and lifted it from its hangers. She grunted, muscles straining at the sudden weight.

She did not expect it to be as heavy as it was and stumbled backward a few steps as the blade tipped back toward her dangerously.

“Shit, shit, shit!” she wobbled precariously, nearly about to drop the blade back on herself, probably cleaving herself in two, before a leather-gloved hand snatched up the blade and gently took it from her hands and hung it back on the wall.

“Maybe something a little smaller?” the young smith chuckled at her and Luz’s face flushed crimson but nodded. “Can I see what you got?” she held out her hands and Luz blinked before realizing she meant her training sword. She pulled it from its sheath and held it out to the other young woman, who hummed as she examined it.

“Training blade, huh?” she handed it back and nodded to herself. “Well if you want something similar, but with more bite, of course, one of these long swords would be good.” she gestured to a few weapons hanging on the wall, the sunlight coming through the shop windows bounced off their polished surfaces in a blinding glare.

Luz hummed, tapping a finger to her chin as she examined the blades before finally pulling one off the wall. Its weight was solid but comfortable in her hands as she gripped the smooth, ebony-colored leather wrapped around the grip. The pommel was a distinctly shaped animal head. A wolf if she’d ever seen one. The silver guard flared out away from the grip in two straight bars, tripped with carefully rounded, curved points; fangs.

She hefted the blade into starting position, elbows raised and blade perpendicular to her face before giving it a few swings and twists, jabbing an imaginary opponent as Eda had taught her. It felt good in her hands, and she tried to remain serious even as excitement was threatening to spill over, but she couldn't keep the grin off her face as she swung it around experimentally before finally lowering back to her waist and running her fingers over the fuller of the blade.

“You know, don’t get many humans around here, even less buying weapons,” the smith finally spoke up after watching Luz’s masterful, and graceful demonstration, a far cry from when she’d nearly dropped the zweihander on herself a few minutes ago.

Luz’s shoulders seemed to hug her neck, as though willing her ears to become invisible. The young blacksmith was quick to notice.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, just doesn’t happen much… or ever, really. I’m Viney, by the way.” The blacksmith introduced herself with a grin and Luz felt herself relax at the easy smile.

“Luz Noceda,” Luz returned the introduction.

“New in town? I feel like I would have seen you around before,” she asked. Luz knew what she really meant. If they didn’t get many humans around here, she would be a sure standout in town, not something she was looking forward to.

“Yeah, just got in this morning, we’re looking for work,” Luz explained.

“Well, you came to the right place, Bonesburough is the largest port city in the Boiling Isles and as the farthest south, ever since the war started raging just across the sea, there's never a shortage of need for help carrying or protecting cargo around here with the Emperor’s men constantly coming and going, restocking and all that.” Viney crossed her arms and shrugged.

That sounded like good news for her and Eda. Where there's fighting, there's money. Those were her mentor’s words anyway, it sounded boring though.

“Well I was hoping for something along the lines of monster-slaying,” she admitted.

“Monster slaying? No offense, but you don’t exactly fit the description of most monster hunters I’ve known.”

“Because I’m human?” Luz frowned.

“You’re tiny,” Viney said instead and Luz yelped. She was fairly tall, but she was quite lean and lanky, at least it appeared so when she wore her cloak, but after five years of traveling and training with Eda, she was actually all lean and toned muscle, thank you very much.

“I'm just lean!” she shrugged her cloak off her shoulders, letting it hang from her neck, and flexed both arms, making the much bulkier blacksmith laugh, but she was right, the human wasn’t nearly as stick-like as the cloak and baggy tunic had led her to believe.

“I stand corrected, you gotta admit, when you almost dropped that zweihander on yourself it left room for doubt,” she chuckled.

“I just didn’t expect it to be that top-heavy…,” Luz grumbled as Viney grinned. “I got this fighting a cockatrice!” she proudly pointed to the still very new and raw skin that is definitely going to scar when it heals.

“No kiddin’?” Viney gazed at the painful-looking wound. “Well, if you’re looking for jobs slaying malicious creatures, the locals often hire and the job board in the town square usually has some stuff,” Viney informed her and Luz nodded.

“Thanks very much.”

“So, what do you think about the sword?” Viney tilted her head and motioned to the longsword still gripped in one of Luz’s hands.

“It’s perfectly balanced. How much?” Luz tried not to let how eager she was show, she’d learned the hard way how that often led to merchant’s jacking up the price on her; that and just because she was human.

“Normally, with the extra detailing, I’d ask a little more for that one, but I’ll let it go for a hundred-fifty, a welcome to town discount.” The smith grinned at her and Luz perked.

“Deal” she nodded and they made the exchange before Luz made her way out of the door, waving as Viney called at her back.

“Don’t be a stranger!”

Luz walked proudly through the streets of Bonesburough, with her new blade fit snugly in its black and silver sheath, tied at her hip next to her old training blade. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with that yet, but she finally felt like she was making progress. She had finally learned some form of magic and Eda had finally deemed her ready for a real sword.

Now she just needed to meet back up with her mentor.

She glanced around curiously. She had no idea where the inn was.

She sighed to herself, leave it to Eda to leave her alone in a strange new city with no instructions or even a general idea of what direction she should even be going. She really. Needed to learn to ask follow-up questions.

So much of the city looked the same, the general infrastructure anyway. Plain, gray stone walls, and people moving in every direction around her in a symphony of noise; it was disorienting.

She was so busy looking around at everything that she isn’t paying attention when she turns a corner and runs headlong into someone coming out of a shop and sending them both tumbling to the ground.

“Sorry, I’m sorry!” Luz was already apologizing as she scrambled to her feet, she turned to look at whoever she had just bowled over while not paying attention.

A young woman, her pointed ears giving her away as a witch, in a fancy magenta and gold-trimmed dress. She looked to be about her own age, with mint colored hair that hung just above her shoulders in a straight cut, longer sides pulled back in a short tail at the back of her head. Luz blinked, noticing the roots showing at the peak of her forehead, a bright bronzey auburn color. Her face was lean, with the sharp jaw and pointed chin that seem to come standard on most aristocrats.

Everything about her screamed ‘noble’, including the bright gold eyes currently glaring daggers at her from the ground and Luz, blinked at her, wide-eyed, finally realizing she was standing there, staring, like an idiot at a pretty noblewoman she had just barreled into.

"Let me help you." She held her hand out.

“Watch where you’re going, you half-wit!” she snarled, slapping Luz’s extended hand away and hauling herself to her feet.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Luz grimaced as the other woman scowled at her.

“Obviously,” she bit out, dusting herself off and noticing the long rip in the skirt and to Luz, it looked like someone had just told her something terrible by the way her face shifted to dread before quickly switching back to anger. “Look what you did!” she snapped, making Luz flinch back.

“I…” Luz isn’t sure what to say or how she can make this better. If anything her hesitation only seems to make the woman in front of her angrier.

“Just get out of my way…” she shouldered past Luz without a second glance and disappeared into the crowd within a few seconds. Luz frowned as she disappeared.

She was off to a great start today it seems.

She glanced up at the shop the other woman had just come out of and it met with an old painted sign.

‘Park’s Herbs & Tonics’

An apothecary? As good a place as any to get directions she supposed.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside and was immediately hit by a strong medicinal smell that quickly made her stomach churn.

“Ugh…,” she groaned to herself. She knows these smells. She’d been injured enough over the years that they immediately conjure a reaction in her.

“Welcome!” a cheery high-pitched voice greets her and her eyes zero in on a woman about her age, shorter, and a little rounder with short dark hair and dark green eyes behind a large pair of spectacles. “Can I help you with something?” she asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah…” Luz walked closer and the other girl’s eyes widened a fraction, but Luz noticed.

“You’re a human…,” she said with a quiet fascination and Luz tensed. “We never get humans in here…,” she stops and Luz expects something else but she says nothing else about it. ‘What can I help you with?” She smiled and Luz relaxed some.

“Oh, I…,” she starts but is cut off.

“Your cheek right?” the bespectacled girl asked, pointing to her left cheek and Luz blinked.

“My cheek?” Luz reached up and winced as her fingers brushed over the raw acid burn from last night. “I guess I could use something for that, yeah.”

“What happened.” The young apothecary asked, walking forward to better look at Luz’s face, adjusting her glasses.

“Cockatrice acid.” she shrugged and the girl’s eyes widened before she cupped her chin in hand, looking thoughtful.

“I have an elixir I’ve been working on, it should scar that right up, but it’s untested… it could have a negative effect. If you want to volunteer, I’ll give it to you for free,” she offered.

“Hmm… free, but could melt my face off…” Luz hummed thoughtfully.

“Nothing quite so drastic… probably,” The other teen laughed.

“Let’s do it.” Luz nodded and the girl brightened.

“I’ll be right back!” she called as she turned and disappeared into the back. While she was gone Luz wanded around the shop looking at the many glass jars and bottles filled with liquids, dried plants, and fermented things of all kinds, some brightly colored and some like mud or swamp water.

She stared into a jar of murky clear liquid and an eyeball stared back at her from the brine. She leaned down to better look at it and blinked. It blinked back, making her jump and stumble backward, nearly knocking over a shelf full of glassware. She grabbed it before anything could go careening to the floor and sighed in relief.

“Here we are!” The girl returned and walked straight up to her, a jar of bright yellow liquid in one hand and a rag in the other.

“Are you ready… Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t even get your name!”

“Luz, Luz Noceda.” she gave a little bow, arm at her waist, and grinning.

“Willow Park,” she returned the greeting. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Luz shrugged and Willow popped the cork on the bottle and Luz wanted to gag at the smell but she held fast as Willow poured some of the elixir on the rag before she gently pressed it to Luz’s cheek, who hissed painfully as it burned her skin, but only for a moment and then the pain faded into a weird tingling in her skin.

The rag was pulled away and Willow looked at it before a smile broke out across her face.

“Did it work?” Luz questioned.

“Have a look!” Willow smiled and started to gesture to the small mirror she had sitting on the counter but Luz pulled her sword from its sheath, making her jump as she angled it to see herself in the polished blade.

“Hey!” Luz grinned. Her raw, painful wound had scarred over near instantly creating a jagged scar that stretched from just left of her nose and across her cheek beneath her left eye nearly all the way back to her ear.

“Does it make me look dangerous?” She turned to Willow, brows raised in question. The apothecary laughed.

“That’s one word for it.” she nodded.

“Thanks, Willow!” Luz beamed and the shorter girl grinned.

“It’s what we do and why you came.”

“Actually… I was hoping to get directions to the RedStone inn,” Luz chuckled sheepishly. “But this is great too,” she assured.

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so?”

Luz leaves the shop with a healed face and directions for the city’s most popular inn.

It doesn’t take her long to find the inn, nor the room Eda had rented for the three of them. King sat up as soon as she walked into the room, tail thumping loudly on the bed.

“Hey, you’re back, so, what’d you get?” Eda craned her neck around from the bed to try and spy the new sidearm tied to Luz’s waist, which she presented to her mentor with a grin and flourish.

Eda whistled as she inspected the brightly polished blade and expertly molded guard and pommel.

“I take it there's no money left…” Eda frowned, looking up at Luz from her place sitting on the bed.

Luz blinked, confused by that, and pulled the leather sack of coins from her waist.

“There's plenty of money left.” She tossed the bag to Eda who eyed its contents and frowned further.

“Did you steal this?”

“What?!” Luz guffawed, making King’s ear’s perk up and swivel in her direction.

“Look, Kid, I know a good blade when I see one, and this is a four-hundred silver sword, easy, what did you pay for this?”

“One-fifty… Viney said she was giving me a ‘newcomer’ discount…,” she trailed off.

“Who?” Eda blinked.

“The Blacksmith!”

“Oh, the girl…” Eda smirked and Luz frowned at it. “Sounds like you got the ‘blacksmith thought you were good-looking’ discount.” Eda cackled.

“No, she was just nice!” Luz flushed.

“Sure, Kid, I’d never be nice enough to take that much money off a sword…I’m just sayin…” Eda shrugged, laying back on the bed, arms folded behind her head and smirking to herself, eyes closed.

“You’re not nice to most people…,” Luz reminded.

“Ha, got me there!” She peeled one eye open to look at Luz. “Either way, hope you're ready to use it. First thing tomorrow you're gonna head out there and start working if you wanna eat and pay your share of this room that is.”

“Ah, right, I got a tip on some jobs… So… are you done training me… am I on my own?” Luz looked at her frowning as she sat on her bed beside King.

“Essentially…” Eda sat up, face turning serious. “I’ve taught you everything I can technique-wise, outside of magic. You’re going to have to figure that out on your own, but you got that book to help you with that.”

“That’s true.” Luz nodded, fingering the hilt of her sword.

“If this is what you want to do Luz, you need to learn how to work independently, it can be lonely out there at times, so I’m not going anywhere just yet, we just got here and there’s money to be made! When I’m not out working I’ll be around to offer sagely advice, as always.” She grinned and Luz snorted.

Eda gave advice alright, but Luz wasn’t sure she would categorize it as even remotely ‘sagely’.

“So, rest up, Kid. The rest of your life starts tomorrow!” Eda grinned, slapping her back.

“Right!” she flopped back on the bed, with King at her side and her fatigue from that morning came rushing back and before she knew it, she’s out, curled up into a ball with King to keep her warm. Eda rolls her eyes at the two of them but grins all the same.