Fandom: The Owl House
Characters: Emira Blight, Edric Blight
Relationships: Minor Emira/Viney
Rating: T
Tags/Warnings: Non-graphic depictions of injury
Word Count: 2,397
This is what they don’t tell Amity:
Neither of them remember how they got to Hexside.
All they remember is a nest of rocks and dirt and blood, and a sky filled with technicolour stars. Then they woke up in the Healing Track homeroom, surrounded by a wall of white screens and pale faces. Viney has offered to fill in the gaps of their memory— an airlift from Puddles was involved, somehow— but both Edric and Emira are just as happy to leave some things blank.
Emira still can’t close her eyes without seeing her brother’s broken body at the bottom of a well.
It’s been days since the Day of Unity, not that there’s anyone left who’s keeping track. Anyone marked with a sigil had been taken by the Collector, leaving Hexside a makeshift orphanage. Emira doesn’t know what’s become of Alador or Odalia, and she’s not sure she wants to. But there’s been no word on the fate of Amity or her friends, either.
As far as she knows, Edric is the only family she has left.
Breaking out of Odalia’s maximum security grounding had been child’s play amongst all the chaos, but they’d had bigger things to worry about than abomatons. They hadn’t been affected by the draining spell, but nobody had been prepared for its aftermath; the Collector, and the watchful eyes of their stars. Emira and Edric ran, just the two of them against an unknown cosmic entity. But Edric was cornered, and then he fell.
Her whole world, at the bottom of a well.
The Healing Track homeroom isn’t the most private area of ’New Hexside', with its constant influx of students and assorted refugees, all sigilless and scared. There’s always a Construction Track kid with a sprained wrist or a kindergartner with a nosebleed to be attended to, and all the Healing Track students available to do the tending. If it had been up to Emira, she would have found a secluded room for herself and Edric to hole up in by now, but Edric has the worst injuries of anyone at Hexside and it isn’t even close. He needs constant attention, and she’s loathe to stray very far.
But there are moments of peace. It’s late, and the handful of students who need to stay overnight to be monitored are quick to fall asleep. When Viney enters to check on them she’s quiet as a whisper, until she tiptoes over to Emira and Edric’s sequestered corner of the room. The privacy screens are still up, at first for the benefit of the other students. From what Emira remembers, they had been a pretty gnarly sight.
“How’s your arm doing?” Viney asks, and Emira offers it up in response to the implied request. The tremors in her hands have settled, but her fingers still twitch at Viney’s light touch. Viney unwinds the bandages, exposing the raw and mottled skin from her forearm up to her bicep. The deep gash was a gift from the jagged rocks in the well when Emira had climbed down to join her brother, but she hadn’t noticed it at the time. Viney’s stitches are rough and uneven, but they hold.
“There’s no sign of infection, which is good. It’s still going to leave a nasty scar, though,” Viney assesses, running a calloused hand over the warm, swollen skin.
“That’s fine. All the cool kids have one,” Emira smiles weakly. It would have bothered her, before. One more blemish to cover with a concealment stone. Yet when she thinks about how Edric looks under all those bandages (she’s the only healer allowed to dress him, she’s the only one who knows), a single scar along her arm doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
Viney pulls out a fresh roll of bandages and two healing patches, and Emira reflexively pulls her arm away.
“You should save those for—”
“Nope,” Viney ignores her, grabbing her wrist equally firm and gentle. “Healers get priority. We can’t help anybody else if we don’t help ourselves first.”
Emira isn’t sure how well Viney follows her own advice, but she can’t bring herself to argue. Viney slaps the patches on top of fresh white gauze, which is nice and tight without constricting blood flow. They’ve all gotten a lot better at their first aid technique in a very short amount of time.
“Any word from the scouts?” Emira ventures. Viney shakes her head, and though it’s the answer Emira expected it’s still disappointing.
“We’re planning another run soon, though,” Viney says, attempting a cheerful tone.
“I can help—”
“No, you can rest. You’re useless to us if you overextend yourself and pass out. Again.”
Viney squeezes her hand, and Emira’s heart skips a beat as if to make a point.
“Yeah, yeah I- you’re right. Thanks,” Emira mutters, glancing away as Viney lets go. She watches Viney make one last round to check on a student with a fever, then breathes a stuttered sigh and rubs her eyes. Nobody has seen Amity. Nobody has seen Luz either, or anything resembling them as puppets. Emira isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not.
It’s fine. Those kids are strong. They’re the Grom Queens. Willow and Gus are prodigies in their respective tracks. She has to believe that wherever they are, they’re okay.
I’m sure they’re fine, Em.
Emira glances over at Edric’s cot, and meets his bleary golden eyes from where he lay.
“Don’t do that,” she snaps, though it lacks teeth.
“I can’t stay positive?” he whines, sounding extra whiney for all the crackling in his voice.
“I mean the—” Emira’s nose crinkles. You know what.
Edric grins weakly at her, but is shameful enough not to respond.
Their telepathy isn’t a secret per se; most people have at least a hunch, but it’s not something they go around telling people about. There’s no need to let people in on its advantages and limitations, including head-splitting migraines if they rely on it for too long. In the state that he’s in, Ed is only tempting fate.
Emira sits on the side of his bed, and brushes the hair out of his eyes. She’ll need to trim it for him, soon.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
“I can’t really feel anything,” Edric says, then startles. “I- I can’t feel anything, Em.”
“Relax, those are the healing patches doing their thing. Here,” Emira peels one off his foot just to—
“Aaugh! Put it back!”
Emira sticks it back on, ignoring Edric’s hiss.
“Why would you do that?”
“I was making sure you still have feelings in your legs!”
“Oh,” Edric settles again.
“Those are the strongest healing patches we have, but we’re going to have to put you on the regular ones soon,” Emira warns, though it’s a mild comfort to her at least. Long-term healing patch usage can stifle a body’s ability to heal itself, so it’s a good sign Edric is stable enough to start weaning onto weaker patches. His body is slowly but surely repairing itself. He’ll get better.
Emira settles onto the mattress next to him, and lets the fatigue in her bones take over. This is the most coherent he’s been since they arrived here, and with the flood of relief comes the wave of exhaustion.
They’re okay.
“Sorry that you’re stuck with me like this. Your worst fear, right?” Edric grumbles, quiet so that only she can hear. Emira snorts derisively, and turns to face him. She can sense his urge to fidget despite the tight bandages limiting his movement, and reaches out to clasp his hand.
“Nah, it’s okay. You were right— being alone forever would be a lot worse.”
This is what they don’t tell Amity:
Edric should be dead. Nobody really knows how he isn’t.
Edric’s wounds were grievous. His body was in shock. He was losing a lot of blood, fast. Emira is a smart, exceptional girl, but her healing magic lacks the years and technique of experienced professionals who would themselves have struggled to save him. Bo’s pet theory is the nebulous and unsubstantiated concept of Twin Magic, which isn’t a real thing but no one has any better ideas. Healers don’t believe in miracles.
This is what they don’t tell Amity:
Emira would have died, if they hadn’t found her when they did.
Emira’s healing abilities are amateur, by most standards. But what she lacked in skill, she had made up for in pure brute force. It’s said that with a rush of adrenaline and the primal urge to save a loved one, a witch can temporarily possess the power of a Titan. However, there are limits to what a bile sac can handle, and a heart running on empty is a heart that won’t stay beating for long.
The pain had been excruciating.
Edric could feel every broken bone, could feel the ragged air in his punctured lung, and the sizzle of blood against his skin. But none of it measured against the horror of watching his sister climb down the well after him, wasting her best chance to save herself in a futile effort to save him instead. He was certain that the last thing he would ever see would be his sister drenched in the blood they shared, exhausting her magic and herself along with it.
He was going to die because he was an idiot who tumbled into a well, and because of him she was going to die too.
“You should have ran,” he scolds her now.
“Don’t say that while I can’t hit you,” Emira replies humourlessly.
“Em… I was a lost cause. You should have known better.”
“And I said don’t say shit like that!” Emira growls. “Would you have left me behind if it were me?”
If it were the other way around, there would be nothing he could do for her. But he can’t imagine himself doing anything other than jumping in after her, just to stay by her side until the end. He’ll take his current fate over that, any day.
“Of course not,” Edric concedes, tears pricking his eyes. “We only made it out because you’re so strong. You’ve always been the strong one.”
In the haze of his mind, he remembers glowing blue eyes, and screaming he knows he didn’t have the strength for. He remembers magic arcing into his chest like electricity, startling his heart. He remembers losing consciousness to the thought that neither of them were going to make it out of the bottom of that well.
Since waking, somebody had told him about the Collector’s puppets. He replaces people with them, or turns them into them, and Titan knows what he does with them when he’s not playing with them. And what he’ll do when he gets bored with them. He’s glad they managed to escape that, at least.
“Amity’s the strong one,” Emira shakes her head, falling silent as she ruminates.
If Amity were with them, she probably would have busted them out even faster, and found a way to beat the Collector’s spies, and stopped Edric from falling down a well in the first place. But that’s not what Emira needs to hear, even though they’re both thinking it.
“I’m sure that wherever she is, she’s doing better than me,” Edric says instead, and shuffles to gesture to his whole self. Emira’s hand lands delicately on his arm, restraining him without effort.
“Stop moving, stupidhead.”
“Takes one to know one,” Edric sticks his tongue out.
One of the Healing Track students— Viney, the girl that was also in his new Beast Keeping class— makes her way over to them with a wide but tired smile on her face.
“Hey Edric. Welcome back to the land of the living,” she waves, and Edric forces a smile back. He vaguely recalls her being by his bedside next to Emira a few times, but it’s pretty fuzzy.
“Hi Viney. It’s good to be back.”
Viney seems genuinely glad, even though they’ve barely talked. Beside him, Emira beams and gets up properly to face her.
“It’s good to see you both doing better. With how crazy everything’s gotten, I’m glad that at least the trouble twins are a little more back to normal. Which is something I never thought I’d say,” Viney cracks a grin.
“Your words hurt,” Emira gasps, a dramatic hand clutching her chest. Then they giggle together, and it’s a small mercy that Edric has at least enough movement to roll his eyes. Apparently, he’s missed a few things in his bed rest.
“Really, though. Seeing you so serious was… weird. It’s nice to see you smiling again,” Viney tells Emira with a soft expression. Edric can’t see Emira’s face as she ducks her head away, but the tips of her ears are glowing bright red.
“I.. feel a little funny,” Edric frowns, distracting from their moment. The strange twist in his stomach settles somewhat as both healers turn to him.
“Like how?” Emira asks.
“It felt a bit like my heart sped up suddenly for no reason,” Edric admits, and Emira’s frown turns to match his.
“Really? My heart’s been feeling a bit… funny, too, since the Day of Unity, but I put that down to exhaustion.”
Are you sure it’s not for a different reason? Ed grins at her and flicks his eyes towards Viney, which earns him a flick on the forehead.
Shut up, Ed!
“I didn’t say anything!” Edric yelps.
“I know I just said that it was nice seeing you two back to normal, but I am going to need you to restrain the urge to injure your brother while he’s in the infirmary, Em,” Viney chastises, pulling Emira away from him with a carefully placed hand on her waist.
Edric feels that weird heart-in-his-throat feeling again.
Oh no.
Oh no.
What?
“Hey Em, I’m really glad your life-saving magic saved my life and all, but I think it might have also poisoned me somehow,” Edric moans.
“What do you mean?” Viney asks, curiosity slipping past her professional concern.
“I think I’m getting, like, echoes… it’s hard to explain,” Edric cringes. He has a theory, but he’s not so keen on sharing it, partly because Viney isn’t actually a doctor and partly because he’s pretty sure his sister is crushing on her which makes explaining it all the more awkward.
Viney tilts her head and makes an odd expression.
“I’ll be honest, I have no idea what Emira actually did to you to keep your heart beating, so I don’t really know what the side effects would be. But if I had to guess, you’ve got some of her magic in your bile sac now, which normally wouldn’t be possible, but… I won’t pretend I know the science. Either way, I figure it’s a result of, well, that.”
Edric and Emira sit in silence for a moment, mentally dancing around the implications. Emira is the first to break.
“Viney, could you give us a minute?” She asks, her smile strained once again. Viney nods sympathetically.
“Of course. I’ll be back in a bit to check your heart rate and blood pressure, Ed, but I’ll leave you two alone for now,” she says, and goes in for a last round of checks before they watch her leave.
“So…” Emira starts.
“I can feel your heartbeat like a hummingbat whenever you make goo-goo eyes at Viney. How long has that been a thing?” Edric says. Emira raises a hand to swat him, but makes a constipated face as she represses the urge.
“Jerk.”
“Do you think it’s going to wear off?” Edric tilts his head.
Emira hides her hands behind her back, and he knows she’s wringing them where he can’t see.
“I don’t know. I hope so, but…”
“Hey, it’s not your fault. I mean, it kind of is, but if it means I still get to sit here and make fun of you then I’ll take it,” Edric tries.
“Right,” Emira breathes a shaky sigh. Edric is glad to see a shaky smile return to her face, which means it’s fine.
“I just can’t believe I’m going to get a heart attack because you can’t keep your ooey-gooey feelings under control,” he moans.
“I should have eaten you in the womb when I had the chance,” Emira hisses, and Edric laughs even though his ribs ache with each breath.
“I love you too, Em.”
This is what they don’t tell Amity:
They aren’t okay.
Edric jokes and Emira shakes her head, and they play their parts perfectly. It’s a performance they’ve spent their lives practicing; they grin and tease and laugh, and they don’t tell Amity that Dad knows Mom is seeing other men, that the business’ profit margins run on a knife’s edge and each quarter tells a worse story, that the only thing keeping them out of debt are deals they’re not supposed to know about.
This is what they don’t tell Amity:
Their hearts now beat in perfect sync.