Luz had been trapped on the Boiling Isles for seven long years, learning the wonders of magic, witnessing Belos' cruelty, and longing to return home to her mother.
Now, Belos is dead, killed in battle as the rebellion brings his Empire to heel. In order to survive and return home, Luz must now take her place as the Empress of the Boiling Isles.
Hail To The Queen
is a The Owl House Alternate Universe Fic written by The_Golden_Demise3 that was inspired by this fanart by aweirdlatina.
The fic was rebooted following The Owl House's second season as "Ruler's Reach": that version of the fic can be read here. It has since been discontinued as well.
This story provides examples of:
Hail to the Queen
- Abusive Parents:
- Belos was not a good adoptive father for Luz, having left her with multiple scars both physical and mental. The tags of the story even state that the Blights are better parents solely by comparison alone.
- Of course, the Blights are still rather awful to their kids. Aside from pressuring Amity to the point where she ran off, they forced Emira to take her place and all but crippled her magic due to her having no capacity for Abominations. On top of that, Odalia's mother was stated to have been as domineering to her as she is to her own children.
- Action Mom: It's revealed in Chapter 11 that Valeria is the daughter of Luz, the Empress of the Boiling Isles and one of the most powerful warriors in the Demon Realm.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
- Luz was raised by Belos, who was an Abusive Parent to her. She's prone to having nightmares and even suffers from some form of debilitation, needing potions to maintain herself, which is heavily implied to be the result of Belos experimenting on her to give her the same magic that witches naturally posses.
- Nothing is known about Odalia's past, but here, she's stated to have wanted to run away from her family as a child out of fear, hinting that her parents were abusive to her.
- Adaptational Badass: Often justified by the fact that the events of the story take place seven years after when the main series' events would have taken place, coupled with the fact that the isles are caught up in a civil war, so everyone is more powerful by default.
- Luz is the Empress and is on par with, if not superior to Belos, being able to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to one of the rebellion's strongest members. She's also capable of performing natural magic like other witches, though doing so is risky for her if she exerts herself too much.
- Willow is the Head of the Plant Coven while Gus is the Head of the Illusionist Coven. In addition, Boscha, Skara, and Mattholomule are the leaders of the Potion, Bard, and Construction covens respectively.
- Because Lilith split the curse between her and Eda earlier, the Clawthorne sisters still have access to their magic. To top it off, they're also the ones who killed Belos in this fic and both of them have access to harpy forms.
- Amity is a highly skilled rebel member and an adept sword fighter. She's also fully mastered her Abomination magic and can morph her body in similar ways to Darius.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: In canon, Emira was on the Illusionist Track like her brother. Here, she works in Abominations. Though this is a result of her parents trying to get her to take Amity's place thanks to the youngest Blight leaving, and it's also shown that she has no talent for Abominations.
- Adaptation Distillation: Chapter 14 is essentially a condensed version of the first two episodes of The Owl House in terms of plot, with Luz first meeting the house's occupants and running errands for Eda before encountering Adeghast.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- By design of the concept, Luz is a complete stranger to the occupants of the Owl House.
- Luz and Hunter are enemies in the main series, but here, while they started off hating each other, they grew close to the point where they considered each other to be their sibling.
- Since the events of the Covention in the main series never happened, Amity is still on good terms with Lilith and continues to train with her.
- Hooty in the series was friendly with Amity even when she wasn't, with her eventually warming up to him. Here, the two openly loath each other.
- Lilith and Eda are even closer and have resolved all their issues thanks to having had years to sort them out.
- Boscha and Skara are a couple in this story.
- While Eda and Raine were still able to be close friends after they broke up, they're married in this story.
- Emira and Amity in this story hate each other to the point of being a Cain and Abel situation. This stems from Amity hating Emira for the pranks and humiliation she pulled on her back in Hexside while Emira hates Amity for running away, with their parents forcing her to join the Abomination coven and making her lose her illusion magic.
- Age Lift: Because the events of the story take place several years after when the original series' plot would have began, everyone is now seven years older. Luz, Willow, Gus, and Amity are among the most notable since all of them are now young adults rather than teenagers.
- Animalistic Abomination: Certain Earth animals, such as rhinos and giraffes, actually come from the Boiling Isles. While rhinos tend to be pleasant and actually unicorns, giraffes are horrific nightmare beasts that can open their entire neck into a gaping maw to devour witches.
- Anti-Villain: Her position as the new Empress makes Luz this. She wants to undo all the damage Belos did in his reign and starts by freeing all Conformitorium prisoners that were locked away for minor and petty slights.
- Artificial Family Member: Valeria is revealed in Chapter 11 to be a Grimwalker as well as Luz's adoptive daughter.
- Bait-and-Switch: Mattholomule and Gus' first meeting in the story plays out like a fight is about to break lose. A second later it's revealed that they two are just messing with each other and affectionately greet one another.
- Broken Pedestal: As revealed in Hunter's final letter to Luz, he stopped seeing Belos as someone to look up to a long time ago and is happy that he's dead, since his 'sister' is now free from him.
- Brought Down to Normal: After her fight with Dryad, Luz's bile sac is completely drained of magic and has to spend time recharging, rendering her a normal human.
- The Chain of Harm: Odalia is revealed in Chapter 4 to have grown up with domineering parents who constantly forced pressure on her to meet their high expectations. It was to the point where she almost broke from the pressure and considered running away from home, but didn't because she was too terrified of them. Years later, she became just as much of a domineering mother to her own children as her parents were to her, continuing the cycle of abuse.
- Civil War: The Boiling Isles are caught up in one that has lasted for many years between Belos' empire and a growing rebellion. Part of the plot is Luz being left to pick up the reigns of said empire in its battle against the rebellion while trying to finish the portal to get back home.
- Death by Adaptation: In the waning battles of the rebellion, Hunter/The Golden Guard and, by the very concept of the story, Emperor Belos, were eventually killed.
Word of God even made it a point to confirm that Hunter is dead for good by the events of the plot. - The Dreaded: After Luz beats Chrys the Boar Mage down in a Witches Duel for all the isles to see, she's quickly established as someone to be feared, with even Eda and Lilith finding her frightening.
- Even the Girls Want Her: During her coronation ceremony, a female witch commented on finding Luz to be "kinda hot".
- Feeling Their Age: Part of why Blight Industries has fallen far over the years is due to old age catching up to Alador, making it harder to maintain their Abomination products at high quality. This also led to Belos cutting their funding due to lackluster results for both Abomitons and the portal to the human realm.
- For Want Of A Nail: Luz being adopted by Belos leads to multiple differences.
- Being raised by Belos means that Luz never learned any glyph magic, and the lost wild magic wasn't rediscovered.
- The Covention battle between Eda and Lilith never happened, so Lilith and Amity are still on positive terms.
- Eda is never arrested and forced to expend all her magic to protect Luz, so when Lilith splits the curse, they still get to keep their magic.
- Without Luz around, Amity and Hooty never find any positive ground and have grown to loath each other.
- Freudian Excuse: Dryad is a vengeful Manipulative Bastard, but that's due to him having been tortured and experimented on by Belos for years as well as many having already betrayed and used him time and again. All of this conditioned him to believe that being cruel and manipulative in kind are the only ways to survive and that compassion is a lie.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Luz may want to do good for the isles, but Belos' controlling rule left her with a serious case of Sins of the Father, leaving its people highly distrustful of her, and the rebellion's attempts to discredit her worsen this.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: After Amity ran off to join the rebellion, the Blight family progressively lost status and prestige, especially in comparison to Boscha's family, who are now further ahead than they ever were. Blight Industries productions took major nosedives, and with Edric and Emira unlikely to become coven leaders, the family became the butt of many jokes among the elite.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even with Luz's absence from the main plot points of the series, a lot of things still end up being similar to canon, even if the circumstances are different.
- Luz still ends up being close friends with Willow and Gus.
- Lilith still confesses to cursing Eda and splits the curse between the two.
- Amity still defies her family and becomes a regular visitor of the Owl House, even if for different reasons.
- Lilith and Hooty still become best friends.
- King learns about his true origins largely the same way.
- Internal Reveal: In Chapter 10, Willow and Gus reveal to the other Coven Heads that Luz is a human as well as what the true purpose of the portal is.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Odalia is a terrible mother, but when Alador reminds her that her domineering presence in their children's lives is what led to Amity running away, Odalia quickly reminds him that he's just as responsible for that as she is and that he has no right to claim moral superiority or call her out on it. Alador's silent frustration indicates that he begrudgingly accepts her point.
- King Incognito: In Chapter 13, Luz goes undercover as a civilian to try and get a more direct understanding of the damage Belos caused to the isles and its populace. It's also through this that she meets Amity and Eda using her mother's name as an alias.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Inverted. In the past, Luz kept her hair in a short pixie cut, but she now keeps it as a long mane, which is treated less as a display of femininity and more as a means of looking imposing.
- Meaningful Name: With the exception of Dryad, Aye-Aye, Thrai, and Ivy's names all allude to the Roman Numerals they had from their imprisonment when Belos planned to incarcerate the Basilisk race.
- My Nayme Is: The wild witch who challenges Luz is named Chrys (Chris, but with a 'y' replacing the 'i').
- Named by the Adaptation: Lilith's Palisman is named Crowsley.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Years ago, Luz rebelled against Belos and freed both the Basilisks and the BATTs when they were imprisoned. In return, her treachery is discovered by Belos, who cuts her open and sews a Bile Sac to her heart, and the same Basilisks she freed end up becoming the leaders of the Rebellion, meaning she's indirectly responsible for the entire civil war. The same Basilisks also go out of their way to smear her reputation and destroy the portal key. All of this causes her to have a massive breakdown in Chapter 11.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Despite the rebellion painting her as a villain, Luz is ultimately not evil at all. She genuinely wants to protect the Boiling Isles and undo the damage her father caused and her endgame isn't a villainous one in the slightest. She just wants to go home.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Boscha's perfectly willing to say whatever she wants behind Luz's back, but the minute the empress shows up, she shifts to this and makes any compliment she can to stay on her good side.
- Redeeming Replacement: What Luz strives to be. Understanding the abuse and iron grip Belos put on the isles, she makes it a point to be far more open-minded, even spending an entire day freeing inhabitants of the isles who were unjustly imprisoned for minor slights.
- Reformed Bully: Mattholomule is this. As seen when he and Gus meet up in the story, they've become best friends.
- Retcon: Chapter 9's ending was redone, instead having Luz succeed in retaining the portal door and key rather than Aye-Aye destroying the portal key.
- The Reveal: Chapter 10 reveals that Dryad and Aye-Aye are Basilisks who want to end Belos' empire as revenge for the torture he put them through years back.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The rebels against Belos and later Luz's rule are ultimately little different than the system they're opposing. Their leadership is just much better at hiding this fact. To make matters worse, a number of them are aware that Luz is Belos' Redeeming Replacement and will actively and deliberately try to interpret her actions as negatively as possible just for an excuse to keep the war going.
- Series Goal: Luz's primary goal for the story is to complete the portal to the human realm so she can finally see her mother again. While she makes it back to Earth in Chapter 10 for a short bit, she learns that her mother is now missing, making her goal shift to find her if possible.
- Shout-Out: The rhino that talks to Edric and Alador brings up Warnicorns and a bunch of unicorns who are jerks whose horns can only play rave music.
- Sins of the Father: Members of the Rebellion tend to treat or see Luz as being as bad as Belos due to her being his daughter and successor, even when there's evidence to the contrary.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: In the past, Luz was just as kind and loving as her canon self when she first came to the isles and joined the EC Youth. Years of abuse from Belos withered her kindness away to the point where it only really shows up around a select few people (Willow, Gus, Hunter/Golden Guard, etc.). She's also unfortunately developed a sense of sadism and wrathful violence when it comes to fighting and hurting her enemies, though she's shown to be aware of this and hates what she's become.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 8 has Blight Industries fully complete the portal back to the human realm, specifically Gravesfield. But the chapter also reveals that the Noceda home is empty and abandoned. Even if Luz goes home now, it's too late.
- The Worf Effect:
- Chrys is built up as an incredibly powerful witch who was able to give Belos trouble. His fight with Luz ends in his defeat via a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle. At the same time, Luz muses that the main reason she held such an advantage was because Chrys became too arrogant over the years and it hindered his fighting.
- Amity spends much of her time in Chapter 8 kicking ass against her former family. Then Willow shows up and beats Amity down later in the same chapter.
- It's implied through Luz's Nightmare Sequence in Chapter 13 that the reason Belos was able to be killed by the Clawthorne sisters was because Luz and Hunter made a previous attempt on his life that rendered him weak enough to be slain.
Ruler's Reach
