Two Sides of the Same Coin: An Owl and a Wolf

Chapter 18: Secrets Within The Memories

Luz and King have spent the last week having a comedy hour every day, to the annoyance of Eda. After the Basilisk had been defeated last Monday, Luz informed Kikimora of the incident so that they could take the Basilisk back to the Conformatorium. But other than that and the one day there was an infestation of pixies, there wasn't any other incidents at Hexside.

Today though she was at school, heading into class with Willow for a Photo Class. She wasn't sure what that meant but she figured she'll learn about it soon enough.

She regrets everything. Luz did not want to be in this class right now. "Come on Luz. You already pulled out some of my memories, it'll be fine." Willow said, gesturing to the photos that were clipped to the hanging string. They hadn't developed yet so Luz couldn't see what memories they were.

Luz shook her head, her hands covering her ears. "Nuh uh. No one but me can see my memories." Luz stated. Willow put the memory tweezers down and watched Luz with concern. "Are... are a lot of your memories bad?" Willow asked hesitantly. Luz took her hands off her ears and sighed, "they're not the best memories."

"Does it..." Willow hesitated "does it have something to do with your scars?" She asked, eventually. Luz looked up at her, then looked away at the developing memories. "Some of it is, yeah." Luz shrugged. It was silent between them for a moment before Willow replied. "I'm sure if you think of happier times, those ones will come out more. I won't look at them if you want."

Luz huffed out a small laugh "alright, let's get this over with then." Willow picked up the tweezers again as Luz sat down. She pulled out a few and hung them separately from Willow's memories. Once they were done, Luz noticed that it was less photos than what Willow had. Luz appreciated Willow's attempts of keeping it private and still having her get a passing grade in the class.

They waited a bit as Willow's memories developed first. "Those are my dads." Willow pointed at a photo of her dads pushing a smaller Willow on a swing. Luz smiled at the photo "you all look like a happy family..." Luz trailed, smile fading. She wondered about her mom sometimes, would she remember Luz when she returned? Was she even in the same town anymore? Was she even still alive?

"Luz, you okay?" Willow asked. Luz hummed "yeah... just getting lost in my thoughts." Luz looked over at her own developing memories and tapped her fingers against the desk. The teacher walked by their desk "as you work, notice how some memories have greater clarity than others. These are moments that invoke strong emotional response."

The teacher continued speaking. "But if you damage the prints, you'll damage the memories themselves. Be extremely careful!" She stressed, continuing on around the classroom.

Luz wondered why this was even a class anyways, one mishap and a student could loose their memories. After the mission for the portal key, Luz was going to talk to somebody about canceling this class. It had to have broken some sort of privacy or student endangerment law.

The rest of Willow and Luz's memories developed. Luz made sure to block her memories from view, looking them over to make sure anything that could be seen wouldn't rouse suspicion. There were only three memories, while Willow had five.

One memory had Luz and King making a potion, probably the time they made Luz's elixir. The second one had Luz and Hunter in it, the two of them in a dimly lit part of a library- not the Bonesburrow library, but the private one in the Emperor's castle. The two were looking up from a book they had been apparently looking at, their expressions showed fear at whoever discovered them. In this photo Luz was missing the larger of the two scars on her cheek.

The third photo showed a much younger Luz, sitting on her knees and looking up in pure terror. One hand rested on the ground while the other was slightly moved away from her face. In this photo Luz didn't have any of her scars, only the blood that was smeared on her cheek and hand.