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Luz knows she doesn't have to do this. There's nothing forcing her to disclose an aspect of her identity she normally keeps so close to her chest, no looming pressure of the truth coming out. That's been one of the most amazing things about life here on the Boiling Isles, beyond the magic and demons, beyond making friends, beyond Eda.
Here, nobody knows her as anything but a girl.
It's freedom, pure and simple—nothing to compare her against, no standard she’d be judged for deviating from, or for trying too hard to live up to. It's yet another reason the Owl House feels... not like home. Better than home.
So why is Luz even considering complicating her amazing new world like this? If the body swap incident hadn't blown her cover (the only thing King had said to her after they'd all been returned to their proper bodies was something about teens being the one demon he wanted nothing to do with) then she has to be safe.
Coming out has always been like ripping off a band-aid for Luz, if band-aids had the potential to irrevocably alter her relationship to her peers. It sucks, and she never enjoys it, but it's better to get it out of the way on her own terms than to have a potential friend find out from someone else.
On the Boiling Isles, she can just be Luz, no asterisk, no caveats, no corrections. She doesn't have to rip the band-aid off; no one's going to out her. Existing without the barbed-wire leash of recognition was an almost dizzying level of freedom, at first. She’d felt light as the air, light as the name she’d given herself. This was her fresh start, she had told herself, and she wasn't going to ruin that by coming out to anyone.
So it makes absolutely no sense that, for the first time in her life, Luz finds herself wanting to tell someone.
One person in particular, anyways. Someone who's taken her in, brought her under her wing, and helped her dream come true. Someone who accepts all her weirdness without so much as blinking an eye, who’s proven time and time again that she cares with a fierceness that never fails to surprise.
Maybe, Luz thinks, she just wants it to be her choice. Maybe that's the difference. It's not that she wants Eda to hear it from her instead of someone else, she just... wants Eda to know.
Having her mind made up doesn't make it any easier, but she pushes herself up from the mattress regardless, pulling her witch's wool cloak off of the hook on the back of her door and wrapping it around her shoulders. Luz stops to trace the charred lettering on her door as she steps out into the hallway.
Like most things she does, Eda has no clue just how much it means to Luz to see her name etched into that wood—not sharpie over nail polish, cut-off nametags and pill bottle stickers she could never quite scrape clean, but something just for her.
Luz Noceda, Witch Apprentice.
Even though witch isn't a gendered word in the Boiling Isles, having people recognize her as one still feels pretty great, for more reasons than one.
She finds Eda in the living room, taking up the entire couch by reclining on it lengthways. Her feet are propped up on one arm of the sofa, and she's reading from a thick paperback that, judging by the sticker on the spine, had been "liberated" from the Bonesborough Public Library. Eda doesn't notice her as she steps out from the stairwell, seemingly engrossed in her novel, and for a moment, Luz allows herself to linger, her doubts buzzing about her head like flies. The Owl House is uncharacteristically quiet, King having gone out to the woods to wage war on the local wildlife, which has provided Luz with the perfect opportunity to have a discussion she really doesn't want overheard.
The rustle of a turning page reminds Luz that she's distracting herself from her current goal. Nothing out of the usual there, but not what she needs right now. No amount of procrastination is going to ease the squirming nerves currently churning in her stomach, though, so she steels herself before clearing her throat.
"Eda, I-"
"Gah!" Eda lets out a yelp of surprise, nearly pitching off the couch as she snaps the book shut. "Titan's tits, you scared me. Where'd you come from, kid? Thought you were out with King."
Luz lets out a sheepish laugh that sounds awkward even to her own ears as she makes her way over to her mentor.
"Nope!” she squeaks. “Just me. Which you can see, since I'm right here. Um." Oh, god, why did she think this was a good idea? The hem of her cloak is suddenly the most interesting thing in the room; maybe if she focuses on the sensation of the velvety fabric rubbing between her fingers she'll be able to ignore the absolute terror she feels at the thought of actually starting this conversation. Maybe she'll just go, leave Eda to her book and find King.
"Alright, what's eating you?"
"M-me? Why would there be anything..." The excuse spills from her mouth before she can even think about what she's saying, a safety measure born of years of automatic denial. Unfortunately, it's the exact opposite of what she needs right now. Fortunately and unfortunately, Eda isn't buying it.
"C'mon, you think I don't know you by now?" Luz barely manages to suppress a hysterical giggle from bubbling out of her at her mentor's choice of words. "You came down here for something, right?"
"Y-yeah, actually. I did." Luz straightens up to her full height, wipes her disgustingly sweaty palms on her leggings, looks Eda in the eye... and nearly turns and runs right there. God, is she really going to do this?
Yes. Yes, she is.
"There's something I need to tell you. About me."
A single raised eyebrow is the only response Eda gives her, the meaning clear. Go on. It shouldn't feel like judgment, Luz knows it isn't, but she feels like she's moments before every disastrous stage performance she's ever made in her life, just waiting for the next mistake.
That’s never stopped her before, though.
"Eda, I'm... I'm trans!"
The whole world might slow to a crawl as Luz blurts out the words that have been chewing away at her for days now.
"Huh."
Eda’s arched brow gives way to a surprised blink. The lack of immediate reaction is somehow the worst thing that could happen. Luz doesn't know what she was expecting. Instant acceptance, ideally? A hug and a "you'll always be the same Luz to me"? In the darkest recesses of her mind, some part of her had been bracing for disgust, for Eda to throw her out, but in her foolishness she had failed to consider one possibility:
What if being trans just isn’t a thing in the Boiling Isles?
Panic claws its way into her throat and she drops her gaze from Eda's face, unable to watch her blink in confusion a second longer.
She’s going to have to explain. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes, but she forces herself to take a deep breath, willing them away. Just rip the band-aid off, Luz.
"It's. It means that I, I used to be-"
"Woah, hey, easy there, hon,” Eda cuts her off mercifully. “I know what you mean."
"You do?" Luz stares, eyes wide, and Eda gives her an unusually gentle smile.
"Well, yeah. I knew we had a lot in common, but you keep on surprising me, kid," Eda says with all the gravity of one discussing a grocery list, and Luz feels some critical component in her brain fizzle and pop. That must be what happened, because there's no way Eda just—there's no way she meant-
"Up top!" Eda holds out a hand, grinning sharply.
Luz... stares. She stands there, and stares, and stares some more. She tries to rearrange "I knew we had a lot in common" into something that makes sense, but the mental arithmetic keeps adding up to one impossible answer.
"Uh... Luz? Am I doing this palm slap thing wrong?"
She has to be wrong. There's no way Eda—brilliant, confident, flashy Eda—could be like her.
Luz's feelings towards Eda have always been a little more complicated than she likes to admit. She loves her, of course! She’s the rough, grizzled mentor with the heart of gold that Luz has always wanted; she looks up to her immensely.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Eda is... Eda. She's a force of nature, a thunderstorm with fangs. Luz has seen her wipe the floor with a whole squadron of coven guards in three inch heels and a dress Luz could only pull off in her wildest dreams. She's powerful and charismatic, strikingly beautiful without ever seeming to put effort into her appearance, and doesn't follow anyone's rules but her own.
She's everything Luz wants to be, basically. Everything Luz had assumed was a pipe dream, one fairy tale that couldn't come true, because Luz is trans and Eda… couldn’t be.
Except.
Apparently.
"You're like me?" The words slip out unbidden, disbelieving. Half question, half prayer.
Eda decides she's been left hanging long enough, and uses her outstretched hand instead to scratch at the side of her head. She’s giving Luz a curious stare, like she can’t figure out what the big deal is.
"Well, yeah. Hell, I was probably around your age when I figured it out! Maybe a little younger." Every word steals a bit more of the breath from Luz's lungs, sweeps her legs out from under her. The couch creaks; Luz realizes she's sat down. There's something growing in her, under the layers of incomprehension, pushing through the jealousy she's kept buried so well. It unfurls in her chest, makes her breath draw quick, and Luz feels like she's slipped through a second portal into yet another insane fantasy world, this one even more beyond the pale than demons and witches and magic.
"Uh, Luz? You're taking this... kinda weird." Eda's fingers curling around her arm draw Luz back to the present. Eda is watching her with a nervous expression now, that "I know something's wrong but I don't know what to do with it" fish out of water look that she gets sometimes. It pulls her back from this insane precipice of realization, just a little bit, but apparently not enough so because the next thing Luz says is,
"But you’re so…”
Which is only the absolute worst thing she could have said at the moment, no big deal. The flat look on Eda’s face only confirms it, and Luz panics, just a bit, because it's one second into this and she's already messed up, but there's a difference between being told that something's possible—that you can be beautiful, that you can feel real—and really believing it.
"Sorry!” she blurts out. “I’m sorry, I didn't mean, I just-"
"It's okay, hon. I get it." Eda leans back, slings an arm over the shoulder of the couch. There's a distant look in her eye, like she's staring at something decades past. "It feels like it's out of your reach, right? To really like how you look, not just tolerate it."
Luz nods. Her throat feels tight, and there's tears welling up in her eyes, but she can tell it's a good kind of cry. She scoots over and tucks herself into Eda’s side, resting her head on a bony shoulder as the witch curls an arm around her. It’s a bit easier to talk, not looking directly at her, and easier still with Eda holding her.
"It's just... I think some part of me was holding you up in my mind as this ideal I would never be able to measure up to. You’re like, everything I want to be when I grow up, you know? You're powerful, and confident, and…”
"Surprisingly foxy for my age?"
"You—you heard that?" Luz squeaks. She feels her face heat up, knows a blush is working its way across her cheeks, and wonders if anyone’s ever died from pure mortification before. Eda smirks at her, which doesn’t exactly help.
“Word of advice, kiddo, if you don’t want people to know what you’re thinking, you should probably stop narrating it out loud.”
Luz groans and buries her head in her hands, then decides that isn’t enough and topples over dramatically onto the couch.
“Why am I so embarrassing?” she whines, her words half absorbed by the couch cushion. She hears a soft chuckle, then feels a hand patting her on the head in what she hopes is sympathy.
“You’re a teenager, it’s your job to be embarrassing.”
“Gee, thanks Eda. That really helps."
It kind of does, though. When Luz finally deigns to remove her face from her hands, she peers up to find Eda looking down at her. She offers Luz a hand, which she graciously accepts, and pulls her up back into a sitting position.
"This really means a lot to you, huh?" Eda asks. She doesn’t exactly sound serious , because Eda never sounds serious, but she doesn’t sound like she’s poking fun at her, either. Luz just nods, not trusting herself to speak, unable to put this to words. Eda gets it anyways; her face softens, gold and silver eyes glittering with understanding, and Luz feels like she's come home. "Thanks for trusting me, Luz."
She scoots over to Eda’s side again, leaning into her warmth and letting out a happy sigh. The sensation of blunt nails carding through her hair helps relax her further, gives her the courage she needs to say these next words.
"I don't know if I want to tell anyone else," Luz admits. "Is that bad?" It's not that she trusts Gus or Willow or Amity any less! It's just…
This is something just for Eda and her, now. She kinda likes that.
"Who cares? This is the bad girl coven! We do what we want, when we want. You don't gotta tell anyone if you don't feel like it."
Luz giggles, her mentor's infectious enthusiasm undeniable. She's still feeling just the slightest bit unmoored from reality, like the knowledge that Eda is trans, too hasn't fully sunk into her brain.
Some other part of her must be getting it, though, because her heart feels like it’s grown three sizes in her chest and she feels like she’s falling, or flying, because for the first time she's come out to someone and not gotten a you're valid, or an I accept you, or a you're still the same person I know. She thought that was the best outcome she could hope for, that if she were very lucky it wouldn’t change anything, but this is so much more.
Eda doesn't just accept her, she understands her. She’s been through the same messy journey of discovery, had the same doubts and fears, and ended up the kind of person Luz had only dreamed of being.
There’s just one more thing she has to know, one last question she’s kept under lock and key for so long now.
“You really think… I could be like you?” It’s almost too much to ask, and some part of Luz wants to take the words back as soon as she’s said it. Eda isn’t always the most tactful, and this is… too close to her heart to be safe.
“Could be?” Eda grins at her, toothy and warm. There's something in her eyes that glows like an ember, a living, twisting flame. It wraps around Luz, encircles her in its light, and she realizes with a start that it's pride.
"As far as I'm concerned, you already are."