Tearjerker / The Raven & the Owlet

Tearjerking moments in The Raven & the Owlet.

As a moments subpage, all spoilers from the show will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

General

• Luz's grief over Eda's death kicks off a downplayed Start of Darkness as every failure and setback she has afterward brings out an anger she didn't know she had in her. At the very start of the fic, she nearly kills Lilith, and there are several instances of her nearly blowing up at or even hurting the people she cares about out of anger and grief.

Main fic

Chapter 1

• The fic opens on Eda's death, as told from Lilith's perspective. While Luz checks Eda's heartbeat, realizes she's dead, and cries over her mentor's body, Lilith, being the emotionally stunted witch that she is, immediately supresses all of her grief and acts completely cold and emotionless, though she has to force herself to not cry. Even worse, when she does nearly cry she insists to no one but herself that it was merely the ash getting in her eyes.
• Kikimora orders the coven guards to take Eda's body. Luz in response has to carry the body the entire way to the Owl House while riding Owlbert, as if the poor girl hasn't gone through enough already.

Chapter 2

• There's a schism between Amity and Luz when Amity both expresses support for the Emperor, whom Luz blames for Eda's death, calls Eda a criminal, and says that Luz should kill Lilith if she wants to, horrifying Luz and causing her to tell Amity to leave.
• After realizing that things feel strangely normal between her, Hooty, and King (despite the deep hatred directed at Lilith), Luz immediately feels guilty because Eda is dead and things shouldn't be normal. She later feels guilty for not having any tears left to shed.
• Luz has a nightmare where she's killed during the witches' duel and Lilith and Eda talk about how useless and pathetic she was, before it transitions into Lilith blaming her for Eda's death.
  • When she wakes up, she's covered in sweat and for a moment thinks she can just ask Eda to clean her uniform, before remembering why she can't. This happens several times, and it hurts every time.

Chapter 4

• Lilith and Luz have their first bonding moment... while digging Eda's grave.
  • While working on the protection wards on Eda's grave, Lilith lets Luz do some of the engraving. While Luz is initially ecstatic at getting to do real magic, it comes crashing down when Lilith thinks she made a mistake and loses her temper (since the engravings are permanent and a mistake would mean having to dig a new grave). While Lilith inspects her work, Luz fully spirals into a panic attack, crying, curling up, crying, and muttering "I'm sorry" again and again while thinking she ruins everything she touches and blaming herself for Eda's death. Once Lilith finally realizes that she was wrong and Luz did everything right, it still takes her several attempts at trying to get through to the panicking girl.

Chapter 5

• Eda's funeral. The small family are all quiet as she's laid in the ground, and one by one they make their short speeches. Hooty and King both give quiet, somber speeches about how Eda was their friend and took them in when no one else would. Luz gives a longer speech, and barely manages to finish it, ending in "You were like a second mom to me," before breaking into tears. When they return to the Owl House, they are all quiet and drained.
  • Lilith asks to be left alone for a moment, and finally allows herself to cry over her sister. She tries to say that she only ever wanted her and her sister to be together, but collapses and breaks into sobs before she can finish.

Chapter 6

• After Eda's funeral, Luz spends three days in bed, before briefly leaving and going to bed again for the fourth day. King wants to check up on her, while Lilith convinces him to let her grieve in peace.

Chapter 7

• At dinner, Lilith realizes how much she's come to enjoy the family life of the Owl House, and thinks back to how her own family was ruined by the curse. Aside from the obvious with Eda, Gwendolyn all but disappeared after Eda was cursed, and while Dell has attempted to keep contact, Lilith hasn't written back in years, and hasn't seen either of them for even longer.

Chapter 8

• Not knowing that Eda gave her permission personally, Luz is furious that Lilith would take Eda's bed, silently seething throughout the entire day. When Tibbles offers a way to resurrect Eda, it explodes and she grips him by the throat and smashes him against his stand.
  • Despite knowing that he's almost certainly sending them to their doom, Luz is so deep in grief and anger that she will take any chance to bring Eda back, coldly telling her friends to stand aside when they try to stop her.
  • While Willow and Gus resolve to go with her on the pointless doomed quest, they make it clear that they are angry with her for doing something so stupid, refusing to echo her cheer.

Chapter 10

• When they find the Arboretum surrounded by a plant-repelling barrier, Luz breaks down upon realizing that it means she can't bring the phoenix bloom's seeds out with her, the constant failures and false hopes causing her to smash an apple against the barrier while screaming that it's not fair.
• Knowing the quest is doomed, Willow tries to use the barrier as an excuse to end it (despite knowing they can get around it easily). When she realizes that Willow lied, Luz tells her that if she hates Eda, she's welcome to leave.
  • Luz later feels awful about this, but can't bring herself to look at Willow while apologizing.
• While walking around the Arboretum, Luz realizes that she's so overcome with despair that she can't even find it in herself to enjoy the sights of a wonderful magical place, and is annoyed that her friends can.
• While fighting the Topiary Guardian, Willow stops Luz from using fire magic, which Luz assumes is strategic advice but is actually so she won't harm any of the unique specimens around them on accident. When Luz realizes, she's furious that Willow would prioritize stupid plants over their lives.
  • Despite their best efforts, Luz eventually has to use fire and it spreads, rendering countless unique plants truly extinct. Willow tries to keep a strong face, but is clearly on the verge of tears.
• When the Topiary Guardian pins her, Luz is too paralyzed by fear to even scream, seeing her life flash before her eyes and thinking about all the people important to her; Her friends who will die alongside her because of her stupid quest, King and Hooty who will never know what happened to her, her mami who thinks she's safe at summer camp and will never know what truly happened, and Amity, who she will never see again. Thinking about Amity hurts more than anything else.
  • The scene ends with Luz crying that it hurts.
• When the Topiary Guardian destroys Luz's witches' wool cape, she cries over having ruined Eda's last gift to her. It ends up making her even more determined to find the phoenix bloom, since she's sacrificed so much to get it that it has to work. She's so desperate that she starts walking around in a daze, not even noticing the things around her.
• Gus, the youngest of the trio, is in tears for much of the chapter from seeing his two only friends receiving fatal wounds, and the fear that they will die.
• Luz begs for the demon hunters to kill her, but let her friends go. When they refuse, she collapses to the ground sobbing, thinking she has led her best friends to their deaths and that everyone would have been better off without her.

Chapter 11

• While it would ultimately not have done any good, Luz's despair when Lilith destroys the phoenix bloom seed is still obvious, as she thinks she just lost Eda again to the same person who killed her last time.
  • Once Lilith tells Luz what the Phoenix Bloom really is (most notably that it doesn't bring people back from the dead), the girl becomes distraught that not only she went on a suicide mission, she nearly got Gus and Willow killed for no reason.
    Luz: I didn't, I just-
• When Luz accuses Lilith of not having known Eda at all, she finally blows up and lets out all of her grievances against Eda, of which there are many. By the time she finally gets to her fear of Eda stealing her dream of being in the Emperor's Coven, it's obvious that it was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.
  “Oh yes, Edalyn was so good.” Lilith snorted derisively. “Mother certainly thought so. But no one knew my sister better than I did.” She placed a hand to her chest. “Do you want to know why I cursed her? Hmm?” Lilith smiled with disturbing sweetness. “I’ll tell you. I’ll even tell you just what Edalyn was really like.”
  • Eda tried to protect Lilith from bullies as thanks for her having protected her as a kid, but this only made Lilith even more ostracized and bullied, humiliating her and making everyone think she was too weak to protect herself, wondering how a wimp like her could be related to Eda.
  • While Eda made her school days hard, Lilith at least had Grudgby, which she genuinely excelled at. Only for Eda to join the team, spend the entire time cheating and goofing off while ignoring Lilith's, the team captain, plans. Their teammates, who Lilith thought were her friends, hated it, but let out their anger at Lilith instead, accusing her of having let Eda onto the team due to nepotism, then abandoned her in order to kiss up to the new star player.
  • One year Lilith was chosen to fight Grometheus, and it turned out her worst fear was to be overshadowed by her sister her entire life. Instead of letting Lilith overcome her fear, Eda instead decided to let that fear come true by jumping in to "save" her, humiliating her in front of the entire school. Lilith ended up running away, broken and crying in her girlfriend's arms.
  • Eda didn't approve of Lilith and Odalia's relationship either, constantly butting in and harassing them to the point where Lilith doesn't know how their relationship could last as long as it did since Eda was never willing to give the girl she loved a chance.
  • By the time she gets to the curse, Lilith is in tears as she admits what she did but that the curse was only meant to last for a single day. The second time Eda transformed, she ran away from home, and the sisters didn't see each other again until the events of "Covention," Lilith having been too scared and ashamed to talk to her until she could make it right.
  • Lilith's final grievance is that she will never be with her best friend again, never hold her or take away her pain, and even the specter of Eda will fade away one day. She collapses on the floor in tears.

Chapter 12

• The chapter begins with Luz having a nightmare about Gus and Willow dead with their eyes staring at her accusingly, and a specter of Amity rejecting her.

Chapter 13

• As a result of their run in with Terra, Amity fears that Luz nearly getting killed is going to become a recurring thing.
• Lilith decides that she'll try to help Odalia become a better person, since while she doesn't love her romantically anymore, she still cares about her and would hate to see her become as bad as her abusive mother. That resolve lasts until she sees Odalia trying to kill Luz and gets so furious that she considers killing Odalia. While she lets her off with a warning, she does so by pressing Odalia's Trauma Button.
• Hunter gives Lilith an update from the Emperor, that she has to deliver the portal door in a week, with or without Luz. Lilith has a Freak Out as she tries to rationalize how she can get the portal door without betraying the girl she's come to care for like a daughter, but ultimately both she and Eda know that she will have to chose.

Chapter 14

• Luz had just resolved to try to be friends with Skara, when in class she asks how Boscha is doing. That Skara didn't think to check on her injured friend causes Luz's opinion on her to plummet, and she starts reconsidering whether she wants to be friends with her.
• Luz's continued resistance and irreverence to the Emperor's teachings causes Lilith to snap and break a ruler over her ward's desk. Luz, remembering what Lilith did to other people who pissed her off, is so terrified that she starts crying. Lilith for her part is horrified at what she did and runs away.
• With the end of summer coming up, Luz starts worrying about returning to the human realm. Most of all she is terrified that Camilla won't let her go back there, feeling that being forever stuck in a world she hates isn't an option. Which, whether intentional or not, implies suicidal thoughts on her part.
• Without thinking about it, Luz opens the portal door in the living room while Lilith is there, realizing her mistake only as she feels the key be snatched from her hand and someone push her through, the portal closing behind her. At first she tries to deny it, hoping it's just Lilith's bad sense of humor and that she'll open the portal for her any moment. When the reality of the situation sets in she starts to hyperventilate, panicking over being sepparated from the place she considered home, from all her friends, forever. The chapter ends with her wailing, screaming, and sobbing on the ground outside the old cabin.

Chapter 15

• When Luz comes back from the human realm, Lilith expects her to be angry. Instead, she just looks drained and broken, and says with an uncharacteristic dispassion that she just wants Lilith to go to hell so she never has to see her again.
• Luz eventually breaks down crying while asking Lilith why she would do this, why she would betray her after they made so much progress on growing closer, when Luz was almost ready to forgive her for everything. Lilith doesn't have an answer, but embraces her, both crying. The only words Lilith can get out through the tears is that she's sorry.

Chapter 16

• The chapter opens on showing what Luz was up to on the other side of the portal. She spent the whole time thinking of ways to hurt Lilith, but when she actually got the chance she just collapsed into the hug and cried because she was so scared of being alone again. To her, the human realm means nothing but loneliness.
• The incident left Luz so terrified of being stuck in the human realm that she can't even bring herself to open the portal to charge her phone when she's alone.

Chapter 17

• Though they put up a valiant fight, the heroes are ultimately defeated by the coven heads and Belos offers Luz a deal; If she hands over the portal, she may leave with everyone except Lilith. Lilith, knowing it will result in her certain death, tells her to take the deal.
  Lilith: I- I am okay with this. As long as all of you are safe.
  • Despite this, when Luz accepts, Lilith can't help but hurt. While she puts Luz's live above her own, she's still afraid of dying and a small part of her had hoped Luz would refuse, though she feels guilty about it.
• Belos allows Luz to say goodbye to her guardian. Instead, she whispers low enough that only Lilith can hear "I forgive you. For everything." Lilith can do nothing but nod and cry in response.
• Luz destroys the portal to stop Belos, sepparating her from the human realm and her mother for, as far as she knows, forever. After they escape, she's just sitting still in the couch, staring at her lap and barely responding to any outside stimuli. Once the stillness passes, she cracks some jokes about it while breaking into tears and crying into Lilith's chest.
  Luz: I guess Mom’s going to be shocked when I don’t turn up in a week, right? That will be something. Oh, and she’ll learn that I never went to camp in the first place. I can picture the Amber alerts, the news stories, the legal nightmare the camp’s going to go through. I wanted to be a famous writer one day, but I guess being famous for disappearing is something, huh? Totally, right? Right? And Mom is probably going to break down. She lost her husband and now her daughter. That’ll destroy her, how is this fair? I’ll never see her again. Right?”

Chapter 18

• Luz's anger boiling inside her, so when Willow touches her shoulder, she lashes out and proceeds to punch her. Even though the plant girl caught her fist in time, Luz is horrified that she nearly punched one of her best friends.

Chapter 19

• Odalia's emotional state after her last encounter with Lilith is nothing short of pitiable. When Lilith arrives, she hasn't left bed, and is a Nervous Wreck from Lilith - a person she trusts and loves - pressing her Trauma Button. It's clear that the abuse she suffered under from her own mother has left her with a lot of trauma, even if she hides it well normally.
• Her pitiable state does nothing to excuse Odalia's attitude towards her own abuse, however, neither to Lilith nor the audience. Especially frustrating for Lilith is how Odalia keeps insisting that she's not like her mother, despite clear evidence to the contrary. It becomes clear that Odalia has convinced herself that as long as she doesn's physically abuse her children like her mother did, all the emotional abuse she lays on them is fine, something that is painfully reflective of how the Chain of Harm is perpetuated.
• At the end of their conversation, Odalia hopefully asks if she and Lilith could try again. Lilith bluntly shuts her down.

Chapter 20

• While it's largely played for laughs, it's clear that Luz was genuinely hurt by Lilith going behind her back and getting a job at Hexside, especially since she had previously promised that there would be no more secrets between them. Lilith sincerely apologizes, explaining that she both didn't want to make Luz worry over finances when she deserves to have a childhood, and that she was scared of failing her ward if she gave her false hope about finding a job.

Chapter 22

• During a fight with Luz, Boscha finally lets slip the reason why she's been so aggressive towards her lately; Because within a few months of Luz arriving on the isles, all of Boscha's friends have slowly been leaving her behind, often starting to hang out with Luz instead. While Boscha can be said to have brought this on herself, Luz can't help but feel sorry for her.

Chapter 25

• When taking Luz to her room, Lilith carefully steps away from the door to Eda's room, the night she cursed her still fresh in memory.
• While the overall scene is sweet, when Luz calls Lilith "mom", she initially freaks out, worried that she's made Lilith uncomfortable, and about what her mámi would think, before Lilith reassures her.

Chapter 26

• During a heart-to-heart with Luz, Amity admits that she's jealous of her friends who have kind and supportive parents. Luz has Lilith, Boscha has her mothers, Willow has her dads, and Amity is stuck with a neglectful father and abusive mother. Part of her hopes that Lilith is right and Odalia can change, while another can't wait to get out of her house and never look back.
• After spending the day having fun playing in the water and pulling pranks on a rival school, Luz asks Boscha why she hates Amity so much. Boscha's response is to tell Luz that she should tell Amity how she feels before it's too late, leading Luz to realize that Boscha was also in love with Amity before Amity suddenly left her and revealed that she never cared about her in the slightest to begin with.
  • After Luz offers her the Azura books as a way to bond with Amity, Boscha encourages her to confess her feelings to Amity and "get the girl". It's obvious, however, that it hurts her deeply, but she doesn't want that to come in the way of Luz and Amity's happiness.
• Luz finally attempts to ask Amity out while they're alone together on the beach. She begins to ramble and then a sea serpent spawn steals her shoes and causes her to fall flat on her back. At first glance it's a hilarious Brick Joke, but realistically this ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back for Luz, who believes the universe is screwing her over at this point and goes into a Precision F-Strike-containing speech that leaves her crying. Luckily, Amity asks her out before letting her do the same, but given everything Luz put up with up to now, it's incredibly easy to feel her pain.
  Are you fucking kidding me?! I’m trying to impress a girl here and the universe decides to fuck with me like this?! I’m just so fucking sick of everything going wrong all the time! One thing: a night alone with Amity. Is that too much to fucking ask?!

Chapter 28

• We're shown how disappointed Luz really was with announcing her relationship to Willow and Gus thanks to the bet. They at least look ashamed for letting things get out of hand.
  Luz: (saddened) Seriously, when Boscha is the most decent person regarding our relationship, you know you’ve screwed up. She’s my friend now, but she wasn’t before and she can still be an ass. I just expect better of you.
• Upon watching Kikimora calling her mom, Luz considers helping her, but remembers Kiki in her more recent nightmares. Luz bitterly tells Lilith to let her rot.
• Luz notices that there are times that Willow has been cold to her, but thinks that it was mainly due to her formed friendship with Boscha. If only she knew the main reason.
• Luz gets injured in a Grudgby match and has to sit it out (to Boscha and Amity's insistence, against her own objections). Since they don't have a replacement, it means they'll have to cancel, until Skara arrives to act as temporary replacement. While the others are winning the match, Luz' inferiority complex goes into high gear as she's convinced that Amity and Boscha will replace her, and she spends the rest of the match crying while Lilith comforts her.

Chapter 30

• After Caleb's death, Evelyn left their newborn baby in the care of her family so she and Flapjack can take revenge on Philip. The chapter ends with Luz avoiding thinking of the possibility that Evelyn wasted her life trying to succeed and never saw her child grow up.

Chapter 32

• After being knocked out from using the super glyph to power the prototype portal, Luz has a dream where she's drowning in the In Between Realm and something's watching her which adds onto her pain.
  • During said dream, she sees her right arm developing cracks. After waking up, she finds her arm coated with Amity's healing abomination cast: she and Boscha reveal that she suffered fourth degree burns that damaged it down to the bone. Only the promise that Sylvie can heal it keeps Luz from freaking out over the possibility that she'll lose an arm.
  • While Luz is dreaming, Boscha is heard freaking out and begging Amity (who's panicking as she works) to heal her, going as far as to pray to the Titan to have Luz live. Both of those two were terrified of losing her after all she did for them.
• Before Sylvie begins with the procedure, she warns Luz that healing her arm means repairing the damaged nerves, and the pain will be excruciating. Once the treatment starts, Luz proceeds to scream in agony until she passes out.
• After the procedure when Luz asks Viney what happened to Lilith, the healer reveals that Lilith went into cardiac arrest and was legally dead for a minute. She has to strongly repeat that Lilith didn't die for Luz to believe it.

Raven Pellets

Chapter 1

• While it's hard to say that she doesn't deserve it, Odalia is in a sorry state. The confrontation with Lilith, in which she thoughtlessly punched Odalia's Trauma Button, has left her completely broken and displaying clear signs of PTSD from her abusive upbringing, flinching when Amity yells at her and withdrawing completely when confronted about anything. Even her daughters, who have all the reason in the world to hate her, are concerned over how out of character she acts, which is only made worse by knowing that this was caused by the woman she loves.

Chapter 3

• The chapter follows Willow as she visits Eda's grave and vents her feelings, not knowing that Eda is listening but hoping that she is. Since a lot of what she's struggling with involves outright treason, she can't talk about it to anyone else.
  • She admits that she has not fully forgiven Luz for nearly getting her and Gus killed at the Emperor's Arboreum for her own selfish mission to resurrect Eda, not to mention all the unique and now-extinct plants that were wiped out as a result of Luz' carelessness.
  • Willow is also worried about her dads, having learned that the Emperor can kill them at any moment through their coven brands, and that he probably knows that she helped Luz and Lilith escape the castle.
  • Given that the two points above have both been directly caused by Luz coming into her life, Willow isn't sure if she's happy about that anymore, or if she wishes she had never met Luz.