#princess luz au meta

[kraviolis]

TOH Little Lamb AU Masterpost

"Little Lamb AU" is an alternate universe for the owl house that i designed that is heavily based off of/inspired by this Golden Siblings AU. if u like this one i suggest taking a gander over there bcus its very very good

the base concept is the classic "luz arrives to the demon realm way earlier" trope, but with the little lemon twist of it being belos that finds her first and instead of her becoming another golden guard or being treated poorly in any capacity, belos sees luz as A Pure And Holy Lamb Sent From God To Remind Him Of His Righteous Mission

now belos sees luz as His Lamb and himself as The Shepherd because he is actually insane and also highly religious in this AU (i know many ppl see him as nonreligious or even atheist but hes VERY puritan christian in this one) and sees her as his own child now.

belos keeps luz away from magic and witches for as long as he can bcus his puritan views infect how he treats her. she becomes the princess of the boiling isles, though her face & name arent shared after her coronation so she can grow up in relative anonymity. but because belos is trying to run a fucking country, he doesnt have time to raise a child.

hunter is given full responsibility over luz, despite only being 2 years older. belos's reasonings behind this at first are "eh. caleb did fine with me!" but quickly devolves into him living vicariously through a human child who has an older brother that dedicates his entire life to protecting and raising her and would never ever abandon her. because belos needs severe mental help.

luz calls belos "uncle" and actually loves him & loves hunter but wants nothing more than to be free and learn magic and be a witch despite her uncle constantly saying that she cannot because she's human.

after her 14th birthday, luz begins to sneak out of the castle to explore the isles. she comes back before anyone notices she's even gone, but then one day she meets eda the owl lady and the king of demons...

and now heres a list of posts. im trying 2 make it in chronological order but its difficult bcus i love to smash random sketches together

drawings:

baby hunter meets baby luz

is camila still looking for luz?

misc. sketches 1

belos cares for both of his wards equally

misc. sketches 2

luz & darius first meet

hunter & luz's first interaction after she runs away

asks/meta posts:

vee's motives in the human world

philip's thought process irt how he "raises" luz

how hunter & belos's dynamic changed

explaining darius & hunter's relationship

how exactly do lilith & luz interact with eachother?

luz & eberwolf interacting

how do luz & amity first meet?

hunter's feelings after luz runs away

why isn't hunter happy for luz?

eda finding out about luz's past

+ MY SPOTIFY PLAYLIST FOR DA AU

[crimeronan]

Asking this (neutrally) because Ive following your blog for a bit and I just really don't have a clue. But. How do you feel about Lilith?

i love her. i ADORE her.

my love for lilith manifests much the same way my love for amity and hunter does, ie: me throwing popcorn at her and yelling BOOOOO YOU'RE TERRIBLE AT EVERYTHINGGGG while giggling and kicking my feet. so to the untrained eye, it might look like i hate her.

i do not. I Love Her. She's Perfect....

there is something SO compelling in s1 lilith as this powerful, poised, serious witch whose demeanor is the polar opposite of eda's... and how Desperate she is even at the very start, how the audience only ever sees her relax or smile around eda... the knowledge that lilith's constructed self hides a MISERABLE shell of a person, that she's been plagued by guilt and strung along by the emperor for decades, that she's clinging to faith by her fingernails while needing to seem like she has everything under control...

and also the added layer of elsewhere and elsewhen -- the knowledge that belos spent thirty years PURPOSEFULLY wasting her life and keeping her as unhappy as possible before ultimately planning to kill her sister, bc he has That big a grudge. waow.

her s2 recovery arc also fucks. she's such a mess in so many deeply embarrassing and earnest ways. love her friendship with hooty, love her continuing to discover new character flaws all the way up to the end of the show, love how she and hunter BOTH become COMPLETELY different people once they're away from the emperor. i have to brace myself before i rewatch the ep with lilith and gwendolyn because it fucks me up real bad RJEJEJ. (in a positive way!)

in princess AU, though, i'm obviously playing more with her s1 characterization. she hasn't defected and amity hasn't fallen out with her since the covention cheating debacle never happened. so now lilith is dealing with the regime change and a new ruler and all of the Weird Expectations that go along with that, AND she's gotten what she wants (luz has agreed to help eda) and doesn't know what to do now, AND she's trying to be a decent mentor to amity bc amity does not have any other positive adult role models. except for maybe darius.

the potential for lilith and amity's relationship makes me CRAZY. because lilith cares So Much and yet she does not have an Ounce of emotional intelligence. she's really good at reinforcing amity's worst beliefs and making amity worse in general. BUT SHE'S TRYING SO HARD....

[crimeronan]

I think "Belos fostering a sibling mentality in one of the kids for grooming/manipulation reasons while believing and treating the other one as if they're better than the other one (even if she doesn't and will never think that way her self)" is the most I've ever been "GET A JOB.... GET AWAY FROM THEM.... GROSS OLD MAN...." about him in this AU. Get a job gross old man....

GOD. yeah it really is Peak Awful Old Man.

i've been thinking about it lately because of the whole "maybe this will make him a true caleb" versus "she is The Answer and the grimwalkers were a mistake" dichotomy.

belos to hunter being like here's this little girl you need to take care of and protect and she'll be like a sister to you :) and then belos to luz like i don't care What you do with that thing. it's yours. have fun :)

ETERNALLY a miracle that the two of them ended up with the relationship they have.

luz grew up knowing hunter was the unfavorite without knowing why & was like "well, EYE want nice things for him. so i'll just ask for stuff he wants and pretend it's for me." while hunter was like can you PLEASE stop testing the emperor's patience i am going to puke from anxiety and i have enough to worry about. .....thank you though.

poor kiddos.

[crimeronan]

I'm rereading Chapter 2 of why did love put a gun in my hand and the bit where Hunter says "It's just his temper, he doesn't mean to do it" is making me so sad. I'm used to thinking of Hunter as the character with the most accurate read on Belos in this AU but even HERE he doesn't seem to realize how calculated the abuse is. 😟😟😟

i went back to remember what the full context for that bit is and ough. god. yeah. it's a gut punch:

hunter is Certainly the character with the most accurate read on how violent and dangerous belos can be. but even so, he can't conceptualize the level to which he's been manipulated....

when belos hurts HIM, that's just fulfilling a mutual contract between them. sometimes belos needs to hurt somebody and he can't help it and he and hunter both know it's best if hunter takes that on, right?? no need for anybody else to be involved. keep it in the family

hunter saying "i know how to talk to him" because talking to belos on luz's behalf has always worked Before, because belos wants it to, because that's the best way to keep hunter loyal...

"he's still the same person he's always been, he doesn't want to hurt you at all" with the implication of "he DOES want to hurt me and always has, but that's all right." boy.......

if hunter had a truly, TRULY accurate understanding of belos, then he would have either run away with luz or smuggled her out of the castle ages ago. because he would understand that he really.... has no control. over the amount of danger that luz is in.

instead he needs the belos situation to be one that's self-contained, as long as hunter keeps playing his role. if he controls the situation then he can keep luz safe. and consequently it's also his fault if luz gets hurt. because hunter is supposed to do Anything to keep her from getting hurt.

that is his Job.

[crimeronan]

it HAS been a while since i published this fic so before i sleep i went and grabbed the Very Relevant Bit:

functioning as not only a fun little callback during the current fic where amity & luz have grown Much closer, but Also....

there's a semi-fraught dynamic between amity and luz because amity is trying to explain "i'm not an uncomplicated victim, i've done a LOT in service of my mom's horrible bullshit" and luz herself is trying to explain "you are like little baby. whatever you did for odalia is small potatoes and i can 100% guarantee that"

since the fic is amity POV, we don't see Exactly what luz is thinking about, as far as Things She Did For Belos go.

but. i have a guess!

[crimeronan]

Maybe a weird question, sorry if you've been asked before -- I was rereading the Amity fic after your cuddles post earlier today and there's a moment where Hunter says, "Tell Luz an Empress is an Empress, she'll know what it means" when he's proving his identity. I'm guessing he's referencing some political convo they've had, but can't remember if there's a specific one in other fics..?

at first i was like "oh god, do i even Remember what i meant by this??" but i'm now rereading the fic myself (on the wayback machine until ao3 returns from the war), and. yes! i do!

LOVE this question. and i actually can't remember if i've ever been asked about this before?

caveat that i wrote this story a year ago and my memory has holes in it, so even tho i'm Pretty confident this is what i meant, i could be wrong about details:

there's no other specific time the phrase 'an empress is an empress' comes up in the fics iirc, but you're Spot On that it's him referencing politics.

even before belos dies, luz has been doing a Shitload of study in order to take over the isles. there was a plan in place for her to succeed belos already -- her daytime study has involved listening to belos talk about how best to murder people & her nighttime study has involved a bunch of history and political theory and wild witchery and figuring out how to burn down the empire. with hunter as her co-conspirator.

"an empress is an empress" = "you won't have burned down the empire until you give up the crown. you'll still be an empress."

or, more accurately to hunter's particular perspective, "we're not done here until you're free."

it's vague enough to sound like a riddle or an in-joke to lilith and amity. but luz sure does know what it means!

[crimeronan]

Rereading the Camila fic and being hit with the full extent of just how much Camila has won Hunter over immediately. It’s equal parts sad and funny. For some reason the thing getting me the most is Hunter’s lack of reaction to “Move over, baby,” aside from just scooting over a bit to make room. He’s just like “yep I’m baby now I will do as told (within reason), you are the second most trustworthy person in the world now because you do understand that Luz is special and incredible and is Everything.”

GOD. YEAH....

i remember putting that moment in on purpose because the hunter at the start of the fic would ABSOLUTELY not have complied without suspicious growling about it. so it Really Is a marker of Just How Much camila has won him over.

cause like. his biggest fears about her, in order, are like. 1) camila has hurt luz in the past 2) camila wants to control luz in the present 3) camila wants to take her away / separate her from hunter.

despite still technically being a child, luz is for all intents and purposes functioning as an adult on the isles.... the scariest thing for hunter to contend with has Always been the helplessness of childhood. the idea of someone else having control over luz is way more frightening to him than the idea of the pair of them dealing with everything alone forever.

which... makes sense. given. the belos of it all.

but camila Doesn't want to do any of that. or if she does, she's really good at pretending she doesn't. and more importantly, luz seems to like her. and more importantly than THAT, camila seems to bring luz Genuine Comfort. and security. and peace

and hunter feels like he isn't managing to do Any of that for her anymore.

(he's wrong -- he's still the first person luz turns to for comfort and security. she's just Way too unwell for him to be able to fix things.)

so camila is like. such a relief to him. he's still anxious and he still has misgivings, but he WANTS to believe in her good intentions. he wants her to be a good person so bad. he wants her to be what luz needs.

so. he scoots over!

[crimeronan]

Rereading the first chapter of the new fic and got overwhelmingly sad because I get the sense that if Amity went to Lilith and said “Hey I Suck Shit At Plant Magic, I Do Not Get How to Make It Work. Can you help me?” Lilith would have ABSOLUTELY helped her. No questions asked.

(Maybe if Belos was still alive and Luz hadn’t begun to alleviate the biggest stressor and source of guilt in Lilith’s life by quote “Healing Eda’s curse” unquote there would be some questions. But now that he’s dead and Eda’s “healing” Lilith can absolutely dedicate more time and energy to her protégé)

I think this first chapter did such a good job of showing what Lilith is Actually Upset About (Amity wasting an opportunity to learn and improve at something she struggles in) versus what Amity THINKS she’s upset about (Amity not being unrelentingly perfect at everything all the time).

It just makes me sad :(

YEAH.... :(

lilith really does care about amity So Much. she's just. u know. lilith.

she didn't even say anything particularly cruel or meanspirited, it was all stuff you might expect from an exasperated teacher. but amity is SO hypersensitive to criticism and disappointment. and hunter is Right when he says she's prone toward giving up on things the moment they're harder for her than for an average person (although he really Doesn't grasp what a difficult time she's having).

being The One Who's Good At Things is such a core tenet of amity's identity that she freaks out and crumbles when faced with the possibility of anything else.

now, in a COMPLETELY ideal world, lilith would have spent some dedicated time impressing upon amity that failure is better than not trying, and that sucking at stuff means there's just more to learn, and that every unlearned skill is a new opportunity, and all that good stuff.....

but, u know. she's lilith. and she doesn't exactly have, like. a robust child development framework to refer to.

[crimeronan]

oh, the other Vital context wrt AU luz being a covid puppy is that she has some VERY specific PTSD. like part of it is her upbringing, but the shift from "i'm lonely and bored and sad when hunter isn't around" to "i panic whenever i can't reach out and touch him" is So So So Recent. on account of. the novel's worth of horror fic preceding all her separation anxiety antics.

over the course of a year she:

is forced to kill someone with hunter's face

is told that hunter is going to sicken and die bc of grimwalker biology

gets elbow-deep in grimwalker and necromancy research

learns everything there is to know about the dead grimwalkers prior to hunter

including reading all of belos's unethical science experiment notes on them

has to repeatedly talk belos out of """putting hunter down"""

FAILS to do that. at great personal cost

gets to hear belos detail exactly how he's going to torture hunter to death to punish her

only manages to save hunter's life through a combination of luck, the titan's favor, and crazy murdering belos

it's in the Very Immediate Aftermath of all this that she has her "i woke up and you weren't there" panic spiral. and then for Some Weird Reason, her anxiety only worsens over the following time period

^girl who is suddenly experiencing ALLLL the emotions she'd been repressing while running on adrenaline for ten straight months.....

like. the amount that she is exhausted and clingy and Fried To A Crisp is. directly proportional. to the amount of horror fic there is. at this point her pathological need to have hunter in her sight at all times is just Sensible. he has died 1,000 times in 1,000 ways to her by now and that he's still alive at all is kind of a fluke.

[crimeronan]

Oh I think I just realized something. In the Eda fic, Luz still lies to her about Belos being human even though she’s already told her everything about the Empire. Is that because she doesn’t want Eda to associate humans with Belos?? In like a neurotic kind of “Humans = Belos, and Belos = Evil, then Luz ALSO = Evil” sort of way.

She already feels like she doesn’t belong in the Demon Realm and she doesn’t want Eda to hate her so she needs to put as many barriers between associating her with Belos as possible :((((

MAN. i can't 100% remember what my thought process was writing it, but this rings true to me.

i think a lot of it comes back to luz's fears around colonialism and colonization -- being a foretold foreign queen of narnia is not as fun in practice as the narnia books would have one believe. if eda learns that belos was human, she'll know he Came Here Specifically to conquer and destroy the indigenous culture, and eda will Also know that luz is just the next generation of this plan. belos 2.0. luz doesn't want to be the person belos tried to mold her into, but she can't divest herself of her humanity OR his lies. nightmare!

and also some of it is luz distancing HERSELF from belos. she doesn't like thinking about the fact that her father was human. she doesn't like knowing more about the human realm through him than she does through her mom. camila's arrival has Seriously shaken luz, especially when it comes to who she is and what she wants and where she belongs and why she's here.

part of luz wants belos to have been a cruel witch who stole a little girl for his own purposes, and for camila to be the shining savior who fought like hell to get her back. it would hurt less for camila to be her main example of humanity. instead she has to contend with this shitty gray area of "some humans are evil like my father and some are good like my mom and i don't know which i am." which. also hurts!!

she doesn't want eda to know belos was human bc she doesn't want eda to stop believing in her. she doesn't want eda to realize how easy it would be for luz to destroy everything & turn her back on the people who trust her.

as if eda doesn't literally know that already.

[crimeronan]

Do you have any ideas about princess luz having a palisman at any point? Would her desire still be to be understood or would she just be like "I want everyone to be happy and safe forever and to stop being empress and go take a nap with hunter"

god, i'm not sure. i don't have any immediate plans for her (or hunter, for that matter) to get a palisman, but i DO like thinking about it.

one of the environmental things she's certainly working on is the repopulation of palistrom trees -- i think right now she takes it for granted that an existing palisman would never choose her, on account of being evil. and if anyone asks if she wants to carve one or have one carved for her, she just brushes it off like, "oh, not with wood still in such short supply. i already have a staff! let's make sure our less privileged witches get access first"

in truth, the idea of carving a palisman scares the hell out of her because 1) she already has Issues with the idea of a creature that exists solely to fulfill her whims, and 2) it feels like she's taking even more from the island than she already thinks she has.

as for her deepest wish, i think she Does already feel understood, at least by hunter if not 100% by anyone else. hunter has seen almost all the things that luz thinks are strangest and ugliest about her, and he Gets It. certainly luz would like a less complicated relationship with being understood, but it's not her biggest unmet need!

so..... my instinct is to say. her greatest wish here. is to be forgiven.

[crimeronan]

i think the most important thing for Understanding (TM) princess AU luz and hunter's relationship is that, like.... they were each other's primary source of affection growing up. which works out Great for hunter given that luz is a MUCH better source of affection than belos, but. like.

hunter starting out as this guide to navigating this huge dangerous world on little-kid feet, over time very literally becoming luz's main form of physical security; luz starting out as this uncomplicated and kind friend who nonetheless is small and fragile and in need of protection, becoming this young woman who is now much more complicated but still So Kind...

AU hunter is Much less attached to belos because he has his needs met through luz instead. and yet. this boy can hold So Many complexes about usefulness and protection in him.

AU luz is just as kind and well-intentioned as her canon self. but her whole emotional world is tied to hunter and when he's threatened or hurt, her sense of self Collapses.

all of this codependence is, perhaps, causing Problems for both of them. but they Also both do immediately relax and calm down and think more clearly whenever the other is nearby, so...... is it really a problem?? one thousand scenes of them sleeping together say no.

all is well forever in weirder-than-marriage land 💕💕💕

[crimeronan]

we all know what the big secret AU Luz keeps from Hunter is. but, if asked, what would Hunter say is the biggest secret *he*'s keeping from Luz? somethingsomething Belos's abuse is the 'obvious' answer but feels wrong, surely she knows the shape if not the details by now, and he knows she knows…

OH I LOVE THIS QUESTION.

i think if you asked him, hunter's immediate answer Would be the scope of the abuse. he knows that luz knows the shape of it and she even knows there's a lot he hasn't told her, so arguably it's no longer a Secret.... but there's still a lot of shame and pain tied up in all the details. he doesn't want her knowing what was done because the idea of her thinking about it is unbearable.

With That Said. i think you're right that that doesn't really count as a secret. hunter's Actual biggest secret has to be something he's Fully kept from luz. i wondered if the basilisks might count, but hunter having committed atrocities for the empire is Also something familiar to luz. even if he's kept her in the dark about those details, too.

so ultimately, i think hunter's biggest secret, which he will not admit even to himself, is just: how fucking bad he wants to leave.

he wants to be Done with the empire. he wants to wash his hands of it all. he wants to take luz literally anywhere except the castle and hunker down and never talk to anybody again.

this is not a particularly juicy or terrible secret. but he Is sure it would break luz's heart.

and make her feel even worse about their relationship than she already does.

and make her feel even guiltier than she already does.

hunter needs luz to believe that he's never wanted anything except the same things she wants, plus her good health as an added bonus. because he's never going to walk away from her and she's never going to walk away from the empire.

so. it is what it is. he's Fine. <-boys who are not fine

[crimeronan]

Hmm. Belos being Weird and Bad towards Hunter so in his need to control the children he continues to be possessive over Hunter and uses this against Luz like 'he is only yours because I gave him to you, I can take him away'... and Luz knows this is a real threat because Belos continually Takes Hunter Away to do Bad Things so her fear that he won't come back is SO real but she also hates objectifying him like that and wants to respect hunters autonomy...

you know, if you WANT to interpret it this way.... you COULD probably make an argument that it's AU canon-compliant if something like this did happen. bc i reread the luz POV fic recently and i was like "good GOD. how many Deeply Upsetting Implications could i cram into one novella. girl what were you processing here" (i know what i was processing here)

like. it's true that luz doesn't realize hunter is being physically abused and that she thinks she's had a pretty well-adjusted upbringing, BUT.

1) even before the grimwalker horror, she acknowledges that she and hunter are both considered "eccentric" because they have no other peers;

2) she keeps insisting that belos is doing all of his worst, creepiest, most manipulative bullshit "because he's a good father and he loves her" (LEAVE HER ALONE);

3) she somehow intuitively KNOWS that acting possessive and imperious about hunter will get her what she wants. "he's mine" indeed!

and there's some separation already baked into their day-to-day lives -- luz has private lessons with belos that hunter isn't present for, hunter CLEARLY has had time alone with belos that luz isn't present for. luz doesn't know hunter is being physically hurt but she Does textually know that being around belos makes him stressed/upset. and that belos hates him. for no fucking reason. she and hunter both acknowledge that she's the favorite without any bitterness or jealousy between them, because it's just.... how things are. a fact of life.

like. belos probably never told her explicitly "i gave him to you and i can take him away," that Would be a slight AU of the AU -- it would make her a lot quieter and more fearful of punishment than she is in the text. but being told that hunter Belongs to her and she can do whatever she wants to him and if he fusses about it, she can come to belos to set him straight....?

that is like. Very Much a conversation they could have had.

[crimeronan]

Was AU Camila backing off and letting Luz stay in the Isles a "fix-it" for what happened in Yesterday's Lie? Or was the parallel less intentional?

i wouldn't call it a fix-it, but it's not fully unintentional, either!

i Can remember one VERY intentional parallel to yesterday's lie in the princess AU camila fic -- the moment when she breaks down in the throne room. she's managed to hold it together enough to get into the isles, all the way to the castle, and past the coven guards... but the Moment she sees luz, she can't hold it together anymore. & she crumples.

camila's "yesterday's lie" breakdown has always felt the same as that to me. she's held it together through a LOT and she is trying SO HARD. but sometimes you simply cannot be the strong, emotionally-adjusted adult that you know you Should be, and your kid ends up suffering because of it.

as a pattern, it's bad parenting. and arguably manipulative. as a one-off episode that happens due to Extreme Circumstances and Extreme Stress..... it's just being human.

like. this is just what happens sometimes. parents will never be perfect because parents are human.

as for her choice Not to bring luz back from the isles in the fic: it's a Very different situation from the one in yesterday's lie.

canon camila is reckoning with having raised this girl and failed her so bad that she wanted to run away; canon camila knows her daughter is in a dangerous place and would be Much Safer at home; canon camila wants to fix everything she broke in their relationship & just says it in a way that luz can't internalize.

AU camila is sort of reckoning with the opposite -- that this girl is a stranger to her, that camila failed her as a baby but hasn't failed her Now because she wasn't THERE to fail her. she knows how wildly traumatic it would be for luz to be torn away from her entire life, which is still dangerous, but Markedly less so now that belos is dead. she knows that luz has existing trauma around her abusive adoptive parent and that if camila is overbearing or controlling, it'll scare her.

so it comes from the exact same place as canon camila's motives in yesterday's lie: she wants to fix what she broke. she wants luz to have a chance to have a mom, if she decides she wants one. she wants luz to feel safe around her. she wants luz to have access to education and decent medical care and financial stability and all the other practical things parents want for their kids.

and ultimately, she just wants to be Allowed in luz's life. the same way canon camila wants to be allowed to have her daughter home safe with her.

there's really not much difference in personality between them! no fix-its needed.

[crimeronan]

hang on, what ARE everyone's canon ages in the AU as of the last fic? I had it in my head they were over 18 now. (Gus notwithstadning)

luz is still 17! she's 16 at the very beginning of The Horrors (TM) and just about to turn 17 when she takes the throne; she's now been empress for about half a year. (unless my math is REALLY off.)

amity, vee -- and willow, whenever i drag her into the canon -- are all ~18ish, i'm hcing that amity is just a little older than luz & willow is just a few months older than her in turn. (if amity is still 17, it's like Right before her 18th birthday as of now.)

vee's Exact age is a mystery bc i don't think even SHE knows, she'd have no reason to know. but as far as legal documentation goes i think on-paper she's 18 and a freshman in college.

(don't ask me how camila secured her an official human identity, i don't know enough about the US legal system wrt undocumented children. camila would have tried to do it legally & then if she Couldn't, she would have done it illegally. "if we need to find a way, we'll find a way!")

that makes hunter 19. so HE gets to be a full-fledged adult who knows everything. and definitely does not need help from anyone else, ever.

but as far as LEGAL status goes, being empress sort of supersedes the age of adulthood. in real life kingdoms, oftentimes underage royals have to wait to assume the throne while a regent rules in their place -- but i don't think belos had any such stipulations about the empire. he was already planning to leave luz the kingdom before she turned 18 anyway. if anything, belos is More likely to leave huge responsibility to Actual Children, because they're more likely to Do As They're Told.

gross. leave them alone old man.

so. legally speaking, on the isles, luz can do whatever she wants whenever she wants, for any reason, forever, and no one on god's green earth can stop her. which is essentially adulthood but worse. and ALSO legally speaking, back in connecticut, camila would still have parental rights to her.

that camila has surrendered those rights & isn't pressuring luz to come home is a testament to how much she Genuinely Cares about luz's wellbeing.