#Grimwalker Belos escaped and ended up in The Human Realm. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sergeantsporks · 6 months

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Gilded Family

Rating: Teen and Up, Gen

Ch 37/39: Witch Hunters

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6 , Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 25, Ch 26, Ch 27, Ch 28, Ch 29, Ch 30, Ch 31, Ch 32, Ch 33, Ch 34, Ch 35, Ch 36

An alternate universe in which Evelyn managed to save Caleb after his confrontation with Phillip. The two of them escaped to present day through time pools, and have been using time pools to secretly rescue grimwalkers just after Belos attempts to kill them. The story follows Darius' mentor as he adjusts to his new life, as well as changes to the course of canon.

Ao3

CW for this chapter: depictions of hanging and general violence

XXX

Cherry paced back and forth like a caged slitherbeast. “It’s a trap.”

Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course it’s a trap. He’s always got a trick.”

Sam rolled a hand. “I mean—technically, Uncle Bels didn’t say what he wants us to meet him there for, so it can’t be a real trap because there are no expectations to betray. He didn’t even promise a peaceful parlay. But yes. It’s a trap. Most definitely.”

Venari’s good hand curled into a fist. “I was so useless,” they growled miserably, “I didn’t make a dent—he beat me like it was nothing!”

Meleager put a hand on their shoulder. “That’s why we stick together,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” Horus chimed in, “We all knew none of us could take him on our own—we tried that already. It’s how we ended up here.”

“Next time, all four of us fight,” Hamlet agreed.

Joseph cleared his throat. “We know it’s a trap, so… what’s the plan?”

Caleb buried his head in his hands. “There is no plan,” he groaned, “It’s like Sam said; we know nothing about what we’re up against. It’s Belos and Petro, but will they be together in one body? Separate? Will the kids and Evelyn be at the house, or will he keep them somewhere else while we meet? What is it that he wants? We just don’t know enough to make a plan.”

“We have to think of something,” Cherry urged, “We can’t just go in there without any idea what we’re doing.”

“Why? Every plan we’ve made so far has gone terribly. We end up with—with people stuck in the human realm, or kidnapped by the Collector, or taken by Belos! Maybe it’s time we try going in with no plan. Just… figure it out as we go.” Caleb shook his head. “Look—I understand if you don’t want to charge in blindly. And you don’t have to—this is Phillip and I’s fight. We all know I’m the one he’s after. I won’t drag you all into it. You don’t have to come.”

“Of course we’re coming,” Cherry declared loyally, but he looked around the room uncertainly. “… Right?”

“I’m going,” Phoenix piped up, “He has our family. We need to get them back.”

“I’ll be there,” Hunter announced.

Murmurs of assent flooded through the room—even Venari, despite the healer still cleaning up their leg and binding their arm, promised they’d be there.

“We’re all going,” Sam agreed, “Well—I mean—we don’t really have a choice. It was nice of you to offer, but Belos did say we all had to be there, or he’d off them. It’s sort of all or nothing, here. But again, thanks for the offer.

Caleb gave them a watery smile. “Thank you. All of you. We’ll… we’ll figure something out. And if it’s me he wants… just make sure you all take care of each other, okay?”

“It won’t come to that,” Cherry assured him, but his voice wobbled, and his one eye wouldn’t look into Caleb’s.

Despite his earlier confident declaration, Hunter’s fingers tapped nervously against his leg, and Phoenix leaned in closer to him. “Youdon’t really have to go,” he murmured, “Belos isn’t expecting you to be with us. As far as he knows, you’re up at the head with your friends.”

Hunter took a deep, shaky breath. “No, no. I’m going. For Jason. And… maybe a little bit for me, too. Um. But… I think I should tell my friends. They’d want to know that Belos is still alive. And that I’m going to confront him. They can help! Belos won’t be expecting them!”

“Good idea,” Phoenix agreed, “I should probably tell Darius what’s going on, too.”

Venari’s ears pricked up. “What? No, hey—don’t tell anyo—ow!” They glared at the healer cleaning the wound on their leg. “Hey!”

“We have to make sure there’s nothing in it,” Caleb soothed, “If Phillip got you… well, we don’t want a Phoenix repeat. No offense, Phoenix.”

Phoenix nodded absently to Caleb. “Venari—why can’t we…”

“Because he’ll kill them if anyone else shows up! It’s just us against him, okay? Promise you won’t get your other friends involved. Promise—he isn’t playing around. He’ll kill them just to make a point.”

“Okay,” Phoenix said, half-stunned, “Okay—just us.”

Hunter hummed unhappily. “I don’t want to keep any more secrets from them.”

“Do you think if you explained the situation and asked them to stay away, they would?” Phoenix suggested, immediately wincing at the unimpressed look Hunter gave him. “Nope, yeah, you’re right, stupid question. Darius wouldn’t either. I think.”

Hunter rubbed his arms. “I don’t like this.”

“He’s isolating us,” Phoenix agreed, “Keeping us separate from anyone who could help us—he’s good at that. But there’s nothing we can do about it now, not without putting the others in danger.”

“It was supposed to be different now,” Hunter said quietly, “It was supposed to be better. We were supposed to face him together—not on our own.”

“Hey. We’re not on our own.” Phoenix gave Hunter an awkward half-smile. “I know it’s not the same as your friends, but… we have each other. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a lot of us now.” He sighed. “I know. It doesn’t feel right to me, either, keeping Darius in the dark again so soon after I promised I wouldn’t. But Caleb’s right. We don’t know anything about this situation besides what Belos is letting us know, and we can’t trust even that. Right now it’s best to just… play it safe.”

“Play it safe,” Hunter echoed, “I think… I think I’ll tell them that I’m helping track down some missing siblings.”

“Not a lie.”

“Hmph. Not the truth, either. Oh, they’re going to be so angry when they find out.” Hunter rubbed his arms, a small smile working its way onto his face. “But it’s… it’s a good kind of angry. Where they’re worried and scared, and I can tell it’s just because they care.”

“A good angry,” Phoenix echoed. He sighed, hollow sadness spreading in his gut. “Speaking of…”

He slipped the crutches Viney had given him under his arms and swung his way outside, looking for Mole. He didn’t have to go far. Glyph magic sparked, and a glittering ice statue sprang out of the earth, shaping into Belos’ face. Moments later, vines sprouted out of the earth, wrapping around the statue and squeezing until it exploded in a hail of ice shards. Mole marched over to his destroyed creation, picking up its mostly-intact head and hurling it into a tree as hard as he could. He turned to face Phoenix, shoulders heaving and tears running down his face.

For the first time, Phoenix understood him perfectly.

“You’re angry,” he said softly, “You’re angry that Belos keeps hurting the people you love, and that you’re helpless to stop it.”

Mole created and decapitated another Belos statue in response, this time blasting its head off with a burst of fire.

“I’m angry, too.”

The moment he said it, Phoenix felt the words deep in his chest, uprooting and growing over that hollow sadness into something new. He was angry. He was just as furious as Mole. They’d come so close, and Luz had done so much, and still, still Belos had wriggled out of it. And still, the very first thing he’d done after escaping death once again was hurt the people Phoenix cared about.

A good angry.

Phoenix’s arms rippled, shifting into claws at the end, but he didn’t stop them, didn’t try to calm himself down with deep breaths and soothing thoughts.

“And we have a right to be angry.”

Mole nodded savagely.

“He took our family. He hurt them. And he’s threatening us all over again. Trying to make us small and isolated. But we’re not isolated anymore. We’re not small. Look at us—we outnumber he and Petro two to one. And we have magic now, magic that doesn’t depend on him. If we all work together, there’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Mole looked at him for a long moment, then stomped on another glyph, creating one more statue of Belos. He drew another glyph in the dirt, but didn’t activate it, watching Phoenix expectantly.

“Together,” Phoenix agreed, and stood next to him. He and Mole each raised one foot at the same time, stepping down and activating the glyph together. An ice spike sliced cleanly through the statue.

“We’re going to get them back,” Phoenix promised, “All of them. And there’s nothing he can do to stop us.”

Xxx

“You’re dripping.”

Phoenix glanced down at his clawed hands. Sam was exaggerating—none of the mud had fallen off. “That’s okay. I’m not changing them back right now.” He’d calm down when everyone was home safely. For now, his anger had a place, and a use. They’d need every weapon at their disposal if they wanted to not only rescue their family but also take Belos down for good. Even if that meant using Phoenix’s unstable curse.

Sam raised an eyebrow at that, but shrugged. “I think Dad’s out of the depths of despair for now. We got some basis of a plan down. Lot of ‘if this, then do that.’ Some of us made our own mini-plan, but we need an eye on the situation before we can implement it. No really any solid tactics as a whole, but we’re loading Auric up with as many medical supplies as we can scavenge, and Meleager’s little posse is drawing glyphs like there’s no tomorrow.”

“And you’re not?”

“Most of my good ones have to be done at the moment if I want to get the timing right. Lot of last-minute adjustments and calculations with those. I have a few, though.” He waved his notepad at Mole. “You want a petrification glyph? You get bonus points in my book if you use it on our estranged sibling.”

Mole held Sam’s wrist steady, studying each of the glyphs in the notepad.

“Anyway,” Sam continued to Phoenix, “No plans, but a lot of preparation. If you’ve got anything you want to do, any unfinished business to attend to… Now’s the time.”

Phoenix summoned his Penstagram scroll, hovering over the messages.

Ding!

Phoenix nearly dropped the scroll at the sound. Darius’ contact lit up green, displaying the ‘new message’ note next to his name. Phoenix took a deep breath, tapping the chat.

Did you find him yet?

Phoenix watched the text for a moment, trying to decide the best way to respond.

Still working on bringing him home, he finally responded. Not technically a lie. But not even close to the full truth.

Don’t stay out all night?

I won’t, Phoenix typed back, We’re going to start looking again in the morning. You don’t stay up all night.

Phoenix closed the scroll, sick to his stomach. Another round of lies and half-truths. And after he’d just promised to tell Darius everything—this was supposed to have been a quick trip, not a full-blown rescue mission.

I wouldn’t blame him if he hates me after all this is over.

“What do you think will happen tomorrow?” he blurted to distract himself from thinking about Darius.

Sam tapped his chin. “Honestly? I’m not sure. What did the Belos and Petro dynamic look like the last time you saw it?”

“I don’t know. Petro was still… being Petro, but he did everything Belos asked.”

“Hm. Can’t imagine Uncle’s too stoked about a golden guard that’s so brusque with him. And it’s a little worrying to think that Belos will be more liable to launch a front-facing attack if Petro’s enabling it. Then again, a straightforward attack is something I’m relatively confident we can win, as long as he doesn’t leverage the others against us. There are more of us, and we already know that Cherry can beat Petro on his own if it comes to that. A possession scenario would be more worrying, but…”

Mole shook his head, scrunching his nose up and tapping his temple.

“Mole’s right,” Phoenix said, “Belos knows all that. He’ll try to outsmart us.”

Cherry sighed from behind them. “He’ll use everyone as leverage for sure. The question is how?”

“In the worst, most traumatizing for everyone involved way, of course,” Sam replied gloomily, then tucked his notebook in his pocket, dusting his hands off with fake cheer. “Well, there’s no use dwelling on it: we’ll act when we know more.”

No intel

No plan

No guarantee we’ll all make it out alive.

Phoenix slipped away from the little group, looking for any sign of a wheelchair. He spotted Dagger by the window, his fingers tapping nervously against the sill. Phoenix approached, stepping heavily so that his footsteps would alert the other grimwalker to his presence.

“What do you want?” Dagger grumbled once he got within a foot.

Phoenix realized he could see himself in the glass of the window, and Dagger hadn’t even needed his help to sense him coming—maybe the reason he’d taken up post by the window in the first place.

“Hey,” Phoenix said delicately, “We’re coming up on a dangerous day. There’s no telling what could happen tomorrow.”

“Okay, and?”

“And… I don’t want to go into it with unresolved issues. Look. I made a mistake. You’re right; I shouldn’t have sent a stranger to get you, especially not without one of us with her. I can’t even imagine the panic you must have been feeling when she discovered you defenseless. So… I’m sorry.”

Dagger looked away. “I suppose it worked out. Even if it was a callous move on your part.”

“Sorry,” Phoenix apologized again.

“Well. Now. For the future. I know Viney is trustworthy enough. So. The next time I get crushed in a cave, feel free to send someone from the family or Viney.”

It was as close to outright forgiveness as he could expect from Dagger. Phoenix sighed, relieved, but the overwhelming pressure of lying to Darius remained. One issue still remained unresolved, one promise still unkept. He had to make it out of tomorrow. For the new friends he’d made. For the family. And for Darius.

Caleb cleared his throat, standing on a chair in the middle of the room. “Everyone, listen. Tomorrow is going to be difficult, whatever the outcome. Phillip has hurt everyone here; he won’t hesitate to hurt us again. And I know the difficulty isn’t just in the fight itself, but in the toll he takes on your spirit.” Caleb took a deep, shaky breath, and continued. “For everyone who needs to hear it… none of you have anything to prove; not to me, to Phillip, or to the rest of the Isles. You all more than deserve the chance to live your lives as you want to live them, in peace. And when all is said and done, I dearly hope that you will.”

The ortet’s eyes filled with tears, and his voice choked up. “I want each of you to know that I love you and this family more than anything else, and nothing, nothing will ever change that. Whatever happens tomorrow… just know that I wouldn’t trade having known and loved you for anything. I would pay any price to keep our family safe.” He wiped his eyes. “I… That’s all. Everyone get some rest—we all need it.”

Caleb hopped off the chair, disappearing out the door even as Cherry tried to approach him. Phoenix shivered. Despite the warm glow in his heart sparked by Caleb’s declaration, a heavy sense of doom settled around him. Caleb’s speech had sounded so… final. Almost like a goodbye. Of course Phoenix knew there was always a chance someone might not survive tomorrow, but to hear it so entrenched in Caleb’s voice… it sat like poison in his belly.

Despite Caleb’s advice, he didn’t sleep that night. No one did—every time Phoenix wandered from the main entrance through the hallways, trying desperately to focus on anything BUT tomorrow, he passed a different grimwalker doing the same. A faint, greenish glow from the potions lab denoted Sam and Auric’s lack of sleep, and he heard Hunter murmuring soft stories to Flapjack in the old palisman-carving classroom.

Of course no one slept—how could they? The terrible thought that Belos might not be planning a meeting but instead buying himself enough time to make another pass at the titan’s heart gripped Phoenix’s mind, chilling him to the bone. His arms roiled in accordance—they hadn’t turned back to flesh all night, but neither did they seem to be drawing much energy, feeding on his anger instead.

Finally, he gave up on sleep, snatching a blanket and wandering outside. Mole already sat on the steps to Hexside, deftly braiding and unbraiding vines. Phoenix sat next to him with some unbalanced difficulty, opening up one arm. Mole snuggled in against his side, wrapping the blanket and Phoenix’s arm around his shoulders. Neither of them said anything—they didn’t need to. They sat in silence, watching the moon go down.

Phoenix didn’t know when he’d joined them, but Caleb stood behind them like he’d been there for hours, staring out into the forest. He brushed past them, padding softly back the direction of home. Mole and Phoenix glanced at each other, then followed, Mole helping Phoenix to his feet and giving him his crutches.

Grimwalkers trickled out of Hexside, joining in behind them until their feet made a steady, dull thud against the ground. Joseph pushed through on Lucy’s back, strong arms gently pulling Phoenix up behind him where Venari and Dagger also sat, the wheelchair bumping along behind Lucy. Still, no one spoke. The forest was silent, except for the steady thump, thump, thump of their footsteps.

Light trickled through the trees—the sun peered over the horizon, just as they emerged next to the ruined wreck of their home. It looked even worse than Phoenix remembered—the garden had already started to wither without Mole’s daily care, and the already-toppled walls had broken apart further, scattering loose stone everywhere.

Petro stood in the clearing, stony-faced and holding his artificial staff, but unmasked. His eyes burned magenta—so Belos wasn’t possessing him, at least not at the moment. Silver, Jason, and A.T. sat on the ground at his feet, all tied together. Phoenix’s breath caught in his chest at the sight of them. A large bruise bloomed over the left side of Jason’s face, and his normally-bright gaze seemed somewhat dazed, but the three of them otherwise seemed unharmed.

“Nee-Nee!”

Ghost’s shout broke the morning’s silence. The little grimwalker wore a harness of rope, the end of a leash gripped in Petro’s free hand. They scrambled towards Phoenix, holding out their arms, but stopped far too short, held in place by the rope. Their face turned red, and their lip started to wobble.

Phoenix slipped off of Lucy’s back, landing with a jarring thud that reverberated painfully up his broken ankle, but before he could take a single hopping step towards Ghost, Petro’s staff glowed a dangerous shade of red.

“That’s close enough. All of you.”

The hairs on the back of Phoenix’s neck prickled. Evelyn—where was she? And where was…

“So good of you all to come.”

Belos… Phoenix couldn’t describe his motion as ‘walking.’ Despite his two human legs, he seemed to slither out of the wreckage of their home. Phoenix’s stomach turned at the sight of him standing so casually in their space, in the place that had always been safe from him.

Caleb stepped forward, standing in front of all the grimwalkers. “Phillip. This is between you and me—let them go.”

For a moment, just a moment, Belos seemed to be out of words. He stared at Caleb like a witch in the desert would an oasis, taking in every detail. “You really did survive,” he said finally.

“I did.”

“This whole time—creating all these monstrosities, it was all pointless. A waste of time.”

“They’re not monsters,” Caleb said sharply, “And they’re not a waste of time. Let them go, Phillip. If it’s me you want, and they don’t mean anything to you, then… I’ll trade. Your brother for a bunch of grimwalkers you don’t even care about? Sounds more than fair. You and I go back to the human realm, leaving the rest of them safely behind. You know I can’t run back here, and I know you can’t hurt them again. Mutual assurance.”

“No!”

Phoenix’s voice joined in a yelping chorus of Grimwalkers, held in place only by Petro’s glowing red staff and its proximity to the others. So there had been a plan this whole time—Caleb simply hadn’t shared it with the rest of them. Of course he hadn’t—no one would have agreed.

Belos’ eyes lit up, but he slowly shook his head, as if considering the idea carefully. “Tempting… but you are forgetting one little detail.”

Caleb took a step back, stunned. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Phillip to refuse his offer. And why would he? “What? What am I forgetting?”

Belos’ lip curled back in a snarl, and he jabbed a finger back at the house. “Her,” he growled.

At a wave of Petro’s staff, the air shimmered with the sheen of a falling illusion, and amid the wreckage suddenly stood a creaking wooden structure, a simple frame with a trapdoor set in the floor and a noose draped over the top beam. Evelyn stood on top of the trapdoor, rope around her neck and her hands tied firmly behind her back. Novus rubbed his own scarred throat, horror blooming in his eyes.

Phoenix couldn’t stop the cry of dismay pulling out of his throat, and he wasn’t the only one. A spectacle—this whole thing was a show for Belos, and they an unwilling audience. Evelyn was too far from the captive grimwalkers, and Petro too close—even if they split into two groups to rescue both at once, Petro would kill one of their siblings, or Belos would pull the lever releasing the trapdoor before they could reach anyone.

“Haaaaaah, hi, guys!” Evelyn called, fake cheer lacing her voice, “I’m okay, we’re all okay.”

Caleb’s shoulders shook. “What is this?” he demanded, “Phillip, what are you doing?”

Belos’ eyes gleamed with a light Phoenix had never seen before. “You know what I’m doing, Caleb. You know what a witch’s fate is.”

Caleb shook his head. “No. No, I’m not going along with this. Never again—It’s me or witch-hunting, Phillip, you can’t have both.”

“It’s the witch or these little monsters you seem to care so much about,” Phillip shot back easily, “You can’t have both. Kill the witch—pull that lever yourself. Choose me, all of me. Not just the child you want to remember, but the witch-hunter, too. Choose what I became because of you, accept these things I made, choose and accept what you were supposed to be, what we were supposed to be. Or… choose the witch again. Keep running. Fail another round of family that you told you’d protect just so that you can live with your ‘love.’” Belos’ lip curled at the last word. “No more half-measures and compromises, Caleb. No more ignoring the decision. You can't have both. So make. A choice.”

Phoenix eyed Caleb uneasily. He’d give his own life for them—of that, Phoenix was certain. But asking him to trade the lives of others? To choose which members of his family lived or died? And the implication that he had to choose witch-hunting, had to choose to leave all of his morals behind… What kind of a choice was that?

“I…” Caleb’s hands opened and closed helplessly, his head swiveling between the tied up grimwalkers and Evelyn. “I can’t…”

“Caleb. Love.”

Everyone’s eyes turned up to the gallows. Evelyn smiled down at them, radiating gentle understanding. “Choose the kids. I’ll be alright.”

“But…” Caleb took a haltering step forward, not in any direction.

“Choose,” Belos thundered.

Petro’s staff dipped, pressing against Silver’s face. They howled, and Phoenix’s own scars burned in sympathy.

Behind Phoenix, Chryses let out a wordless cry of despair, leaning against Lucy for support.

“Stop!” Caleb cried, “Stop it, just…” He slumped forward, looking so very, very small in front of the looming gallows. “…stop.”

“Caleb,” Evelyn whispered softly, “Please.”

“You’ll let them go?” Caleb asked hoarsely, “You promise?”

Belos’ eyes glinted. “I don’t have a reason to keep them.”

That isn’t a yes, Phoenix thought, eying Belos, and Petro behind him.

Caleb squeezed his eyes shut, and after a moment, opened them, and ascended the gallows’ steps. The rest of the family flowed towards the wooden frame, stopping at the base. As he examined the gallows, Caleb’s face contorted into an expression that was somehow anger and despair rolled into one. “For titan’s sake, Phillip, you didn’t even build this right,” he pleaded, “It won’t snap—it’ll be slow.”

“I built it,” Petro spoke up in a low growl, “It’ll do the job it’s meant to.”

Evelyn smiled again, strained and sad. “Love. It’s okay.”

Caleb put one hand on Evelyn’s cheek, tears streaking down his face. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he whispered.

“You have to. The only way out is through.” Evelyn leaned forward, and the two of them kissed, a slow, sad, goodbye kiss that made Belos’s face twist into a scowl. As they pulled apart, Evelyn whispered something in Caleb’s ear, and he stepped back with a sad, adoring expression.

“I love you,” he murmured, wrapping one hand around the lever.

Evelyn inclined her head. “Do it.”

Caleb pulled the lever, and the platform dropped. Evelyn fell. Phoenix couldn’t look away, frozen in horror as she kicked, gasping for air. Caleb had been right—the rope was too short, and her neck didn’t snap, leaving her to twist and choke, her lips bluing and her eyes bulging in their sockets. Ghost started to cry, snuffling sobs that echoed in the eerie silence.

Evelyn stopped moving with a final sort of rasping gasp, her head drooping limply.

Caleb looked away for a moment, tears streaking from his eyes, then cut her down and tore the ropes away from her body, gently lowering her to the platform floor. “There,” he choked, “I chose witch-hunting—I chose you. Are you happy now, Phillip? Is this what you always wanted?”

Belos shrugged, a callous, yet somehow gracefully fluid motion. “It is, actually. Although I’d enjoy the moment more if you weren’t so distraught over killing a witch.”

Caleb looked away, wiping his eyes. “Let them go.”

Petro moved almost instantly when Belos gave him a slight nod, almost before he was given the nod, as if he’d been primed to release his prisoners the moment Evelyn died. He simply let go of Ghost’s leash, and the little grimwalker tore away immediately, beelining for Phoenix and cannoning into his legs. Phoenix’s weaker leg buckled at the impact, and he sank willingly to the ground, enveloping Ghost in his arms (although careful not to let his curse touch their skin). Ghost clung to his shirt, snuffling softly. Tears dripped down Phoenix’s own face. Part of him couldn’t believe Evelyn was gone—she’d always been there, a steady presence. The rest of him felt the loss as if it was etched in his flesh as deeply as the scars covering his body. What would they do without her? What would Caleb do without her?

“I always knew who you were, Phillip,” Caleb said in a low, shaky voice while Petro untied the other grimwalkers, “I always knew what you’d become, and I accepted that reality—I just always hoped you could change.”

“Then I suppose we’ve both been disappointed,” Phillip replied coldly.

Jason, Silver, and A.T. limped towards them, A.T. supporting a listless Silver, and Jason’s movements slightly tipsy. The concussion must have been doing a number on him—Phoenix just hoped they could get him somewhere safe to heal without Belos looming over their heads. Caleb wrapped one arm around Jason, steadying him.

On the gallows floor, Evelyn blinked.

Phoenix’s heart thudded in his chest. That couldn’t—he’d imagined it, or it was a twitch as the muscles in the body relaxed or stiffened. She was dead—right?

But Evelyn sat straight up and stuck her tongue out at Belos. “How’s that for having both?” she rasped, “You won’t get rid of—whoa, dizzy—you won’t get rid of me so easily.” Rough red marks still ringed her neck, but the blue had faded from her lips, and she breathed, against all odds, she breathed.

Belos sputtered, stepping back. “Witch,” he spat, “What did you do?”

Petro crept to his side almost completely silently, his staff glowing and pointed at the gallows. Belos glanced at him, and lifted his chin, nodding towards the gathered grimwalkers. Phoenix curled around Ghost protectively, determined to protect them from the blow. Maybe his curse would absorb the magic.

But when the staff swung, it swung at Belos.

Belos twisted fluidly out of the way, snatching the staff and yanking Petro off-balance. Phoenix’s breath caught in his throat, his heart racketing back and forth between his ribs and spine. He’s really doing it. I didn’t think he would.

The victorious moment was short lived. Petro had risked all his strength and defense on one massive swing to hit Belos hard before he could react, and the blow hadn’t landed—Belos grabbed the front of his armor and slammed his knee into Petro’s face. Phoenix flinched at the sound of Petro’s nose cracking.

Petro stumbled back, holding his face. Blood dripped from his nose.

“Did you really think I trusted you?” Belos hissed, stepping closer, “Did you think I didn’t suspect you were planning revenge against me from the very beginning? You’d have to either be a fool or a spy to come back after I’d petrified you.”

A momentary expression of hurt flashed across Petro’s face, but was gone in an instant, replaced by steely-cold calm. “Then why’d you take me back?” he muttered thickly, pinching his nose.

Belos shrugged, as if almost bored with the conversation. “To get one last use out of you while you still played along.” His eyes narrowed and shifted to look at the gallows. “But what a distraction you planned for your heresy. You didn’t get out of this on your own talents, did you, Evelyn? After all… Hunter, you built the gallows, hm? It’ll do the job it’s meant to, eh?”

Evelyn paled. And didn’t deny the accusation.

Phoenix slowly turned to look. Silver had straightened up, and without them screaming in agony, Phoenix could see that the burn on their face from Petro’s magic was no worse than a sunburn that would disappear in a week even without healing magic. Without Evelyn twisting and flailing like a hooked fish, gasping for air, Phoenix could see that the trapdoor on the gallows didn’t drop so far—in fact, it dropped the perfect distance for someone just about Evelyn’s height to be able to stand on their tiptoes and fake total suffocation while keeping the rope from pulling completely taut. Belos was right—it had been a distraction. Get Belos to focus on Evelyn, get him angry at her survival, and attack while he wasn’t thinking straight—it wasn’t a bad plan, or at least it wouldn’t have been if Belos hadn’t been expecting an attack.

Belos shook his head, that terrible expression of disappointment Phoenix remembered fearing crossing his face. “A failed attempt on my life is one thing, Hunter, but this? Rescuing a wild witch? Plotting with your enemies? I expected it from some of the others, but I can’t imagine why you would do something like this.”

Far from looking cowed at Belos’ disappointment, Petro grinned a wild grin, blood still dripping from his broken nose and staining his teeth. “Because her death was something you wanted desperately.” He stuck his chin out, still baring his teeth in that blood-stained smile. “How do you like it when everything you’ve worked for is taken away?”

Belos snarled and pounced, snatching up Petro’s fallen staff and bringing it in a whirling arc towards the side of Petro’s head. Petro threw up one arm to protect himself, catching the blow with a grunt and pushing the staff away. He eyed Belos, his eyes calculating. Sizing him up for weaknesses. Above Phoenix, Caleb moved towards the edge of the gallows, but Petro threw his free hand out.

“Don’t you dare interfere,” he growled, “He’s mine.”

Caleb stepped back uneasily, tensed and ready to move.

Belos took advantage of Petro’s distraction and surged forward, discarding the staff entirely and punching Petro in the chest so hard his armor cracked and splintered. Petro brought a swinging blow into Belos’ jaw, but Belos barely seemed to notice the impact, turning his head back with that cold, hungry light still shining in his blue eyes. He struck again. Petro fell. Even from this distance, Phoenix could hear a wet, wheezing rattle come from Petro. But Belos wasn’t done. He kicked at Petro’s head, and the guard curled into a ball to protect himself.

Phoenix’s heart ached in his chest. Despite everything Petro had done… seeing him like this, too hurt to be ferocious, only able to curl up and hope for it to stop… it struck deep. No one deserved that kind of treatment. Not even him.

Belos drew his foot back for another kick, and Phoenix started to step forward, knowing he’d never make it across the clearing before the blow landed, and not knowing what he’d do even if he did.

“That’s enough.”

The command rang out sharp and clear from the gallows, and to Phoenix’s surprise, Belos stopped midkick, looking up at Caleb with an expression that ostensibly reminded Phoenix of a scolded child. Caleb stood strong, supporting Evelyn.

“Leave him alone.” Caleb’s voice was quiet, but it carried through the air, more commanding than Phoenix had ever heard him before. “I mean it, Phillip.”

The chastised child expression vanished, replaced with angry incredulousness. Belos hauled Petro up by the back of his armor, brandishing him at Caleb with a wild laugh. “This one? Really. This one?” Belos took a step closer, dragging Petro with him. “You’d defend even him?” He grabbed the back of Petro’s head, forcefully twisting his face upwards to look at Caleb, scarred and broken. Petro wheezed. “Do you even know what he’s done? What any of them have done?”

Cherry flinched.

“They chose to be different people,” Caleb replied softly, “They didn’t get a say in how they were raised, but they’re growing despite it. Some more… slowly… than others,” he admitted with a glance at Petro, “but growing nonetheless.”

Belos just stared at him for a long moment, then let go of Petro’s head, a low chuckle rumbling out of his chest. The chuckle swelled to an uncontrollable, wild laugh, and he dropped Petro entirely. The grimwalker didn’t move when he hit the ground, but Phoenix couldn’t tell if he wasn’t able, or if he was just trying not to draw Belos’ attention.

“Oh, I see.” Belos bared his teeth in a joyless smile. “I see what you’re up to. It doesn’t actually matter to you if they’re whatever your version of ‘good’ is, does it? You don’t care what they’ve done, you don’t care if they’ve truly decided to be better.” The smile dropped into a disgusted scowl. “All you care about is whether or not they turn on me.” He took a step closer. “You don’t love them. You just hate me.”

“No!” Caleb protested, but Belos’ voice cut over him.

“A family—don’t make me laugh. You’ve been building an army.” He swept an arm out at the arrayed grimwalkers, and everyone shifted nervously. “You make them dependent on you, switch their allegiance from me to you. You gather them up when they’re frail and helpless and broken, and you stitch them back together, you and your demon lover. And they adore you for it. Of course they do—they crave someone to tell them what to do, and you oh-so-willingly step into that role.”

Caleb’s hands curled into fists. “That’s not true.”

“Of course it is. And they know it.” Belos’ eyes lingered on Cherry. “But they don’t care because they need that hole inside of them filled. And they’ll take anyone as long as it isn’t me.”

Cherry paled.

Belos turned his attention back on Caleb. “An army who will die for you. That’s what you really wanted. A cushion between you and I, a comfortable barrier of soldiers for you and your witch to hide behind. Why else would you bother with them?”

If looks could kill, Belos would be dead from the glare that Evelyn sent his way. But he barely seemed to notice, stepping closer, and closer. The crowd of grimwalkers at the base rippled uneasily, shuffling back and forth in an attempt to somehow both stand their ground and retreat from Belos’ advance. Phoenix shifted his weight so that he stood between Belos and Ghost.

“Well, Caleb, it won’t work. I won’t stop until I reach you. I destroyed these things once, and I’ll do it again. I will tear through each tin soldier that you set in my path until it’s just you and I, and we—”

A howl split the air, and in a blur of movement, Caleb leapt off the gallows, slamming into Belos like a meteor from the sky. The two of them crashed to the ground, Caleb kicking and punching as they went.

“Leave—my—family—alone!” he snarled.

Stunned silence fell over the watchers in a haze. Phoenix almost couldn’t believe his eyes; he’d never seen Caleb this angry before—none of them had.

“Get him, Dad!” someone—Phoenix was pretty sure it was Horus—yelled, and the silence broke. Grimwalkers cheered and shouted. In Phoenix’s arms, Ghost twisted around to look, and broke into babbling yells of triumph, pointing condemningly at Belos.

But despite their cheers, Caleb’s advantage of surprise and the force his jump off the platform had given him could only take him so far. Belos in his monstrous form was much bigger and stronger than Caleb could ever hope to be, and as Belos stood, Phoenix remembered just why he’d been so scared of the man. He towered over them, his face half monstrous and half human, as if he couldn’t decide which form he wanted to take. Still, Caleb clung doggedly to his back, scrambling for a hold while Belos twisted and writhed, trying fruitlessly to grab the human.

“Caleb!” Belos yelped in a distinctly undignified manner, “Get—off—”

“I’m not going to let you hurt them! They’re not my army, that’s what you wanted for them.”

The knife, Phoenix realized, where’s the knife he used to cut Evelyn loose?

He saw it on the ground under Belos’ foot, probably dropped in the initial attack. Caleb scrambled to snatch it up while still clinging to Belos, but Belos shook himself, and he lost his grip again. He grabbed Belos’ hair to avoid sliding off, and Belos let out a high-pitched whine of pain, his body shifting and shuddering, unable to hold onto its human form.

“I said—get—off!”

Belos blindly lashed out, throwing Caleb off of him. His arm lengthened to push his brother away, and in a sickening crunch of wood and bone, Caleb slammed against the gallows.

With Belos’ scythe buried four inches deep in his gut.

#toh #the owl house #toh fanfiction #gilded family au #hunter wittebane #caleb wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #phillip wittebane #emperor belos #golden guard oc #my writing #hanging #strangulation #violence #blood

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pespillo · 1 year

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been thinkin about an au where litol hunter finds the collector...collie is initially dismissive but ends up having an epiphany where he realizes that this TOY is LONELY just like HIM and then they become. brothers :] and beat belos up together obv

oh this reminds me of one of my grimwalker ocs Mathias

In the og timeline he dies very young , but i had an AU where he starts talking to Collector in secret and Collector eventually tells him some things and takes pity on him and this guy ends up escaping Belos thru a dimensional puddle leaving him in the human realm in like, the 80s, hell adapt.

#toh oc #grimwalker oc #samsa´s art stuff #asks #the owl house

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tartsinarat · 1 month

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If Pip’s curse is getting worse, does that mean one day he might get stuck as the monster?

Hypothetically yeah it could happen, but I love my edgelord son too much make him go through arguably a fate worse than death, though it’s a really interesting idea.

But it’s a later rather than sooner thing.

Main reason is because it mostly just gets worse when Pip’s really going through it in the latter half of season 2 and especially all of season 3 because of stress of literally everything that is going on and not being able to properly fully control the curse by eating magic (this only applies really in season 3) so usually it’s not so extreme that it shows on his body or he fully transforms.

Another thing is that the curse is not as strong as it should be, when Belos was creating Pip he inadvertently sort of split the curse, kinda like what Lilith did with Eda but in a much more literal way (usually grimwalkers only need a bone just to infuse them with the dna but Belos had to hack one of his arms off because he really wanted to get the perfect copy of himself) which ended with at most maybe slightly less than half of the curse in Pip.

Also Pip is like only 15 to 16 in the au, he hasn’t lived long enough like Eda or Belos for the curse properly spiral out of control and have a risk of fully taking over forever, so it’ll probably take a couple years for it to happen unless he decides to stop eating magic which will quicken the process even more.

It does almost happen in season 3 multiple times tho just because the human realm really hits Pip in the face, he also ends up accidentally causing a new urban legend and people now think Gravesfield cemetery/woods are haunted by a demon or in one case a alien science experiment that escaped the government, in reality it’s just Pip who’s stuck, feral and looking for something to eat.

Soz for the long post, asks like this make my brain go brrrrrrr so thanks ^^

#the golden heir au #the owl house #toh #original character #toh au #golden heir au #the owl house au #oc stuff #ask

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theprinceandthewitch · 2 years

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Edit 9/6/2022: I added context for certain points and cleaned it up a bit.

The main pairing doesn't work for me because there are very glaring flaws I can't overlook. Also when I write out all the stuff Luz and Hunter have going for them it's more interesting compared to what Luz and Amity have going on.

But for this one I'm just gonna be rambling about Luz and Hunter and some questionable writing choices involving them.

I'm putting this under a read more so I can go back and edit some stuff in I might have missed.

Let me start off with a list of all the Good stuff Luz and Hunter have going for them

1. They are literally narrative foils. They both go through a deconstruction of "The Chosen One" story archetype. Luz believed she arrived on the Boiling Isles to fulfill some kind of grand destiny while Hunter believed his destiny was planned out by the Titan.

2. They parallel Caleb and his Wild Witch lover. They really wrote Hunter (the only Grimwalker who looks the most like Caleb) running away from Philip to start a new life with an expecting witch (Luz, who is waiting for her palismen to hatch) like...

Okay so let me explain why this drives me crazy as someone who loves storytelling. Because this parallel doesn't start when Hunter is running away with Luz in Hollow Mind and stop in the season finale. It goes deeper than that - to a character arc level - and it goes all the way back to Hunting Palismen. This episode is the start of Hunters positive change arc and "betrayal." The person to spearhead his positive change arc and "betrayal" is our favorite WILD WITCH Luz. Completely unbeknownst to Hunter, the moment he lets Luz go he is taking a stand against Belos. And he's following Calebs footsteps by choosing a wild witch over Philip. That is so romantic it's crazy to me.

[I want to highlight that in their attempts to escape, they were both unsuccessful. Philip tracked down and murdered Caleb. And in the finale Philip hitches a ride on Hunter to follow him to the human realm.]

I also want to point out that Hunter knows how merciless Belos is. He tells Luz in Separate Tides that "the emperor is not a merciful man." We can see at the end of Hunting Palismen that Belos is physically abusive towards him. But despite knowing the very really threat of physical violence that will come if he fails this mission, Hunter still chooses to let her go. Hunters choice is extra crazy once you remember that his "uncle" was the one who took him in and gave him a future as a magicless being living in a magical world. The same "uncle" who has been telling him how dangerous wild magic is. So dangerous infact it took their (Belos' and Hunters') family away from them.

Luz really charmed her way into his heart during their brief truce to the point he chose a wild witch he barely knows over the man he owes everything to. All because she is the only person in his life to consider him a friend.

And most of the fanbase really couldnt figure out why some of us would ship them.

[Also no he didn't let her go because she saved his life, if he wanted to let her go for that reason we would have never raised his staff at her.]

3. Enemies to lovers potential between a witch and a witch hunter.

Edit 9/6/2022: Okay so again, this ties back to the past. Specifically to Caleb's life before arriving on The Boiling Isles. He would have grown up to become a witch- hunter because of the ideology of his society. In one of the flashback paintings we can see him and Philip as children idolizing witch-hunting. And in another painting, it looks like Caleb may have been on one of those witch-hunts as a teenager. We can also see him being "lured away" by magic, which indicates that despite his upbringing he is openminded enough to unlearn his harmful belief systems. Eventually, his mindset changes so much during his time on TBI that he chooses to run away with a witch and start a new life on an alien world. [There's also the possibility of him hiding the door from Philip, out of fear he'll bring others back to help him wipe out the people of The Boiling Isles.]

BASICALLY, what I'm trying to say is is that I think class traitors are very interesting. Because that's what Caleb was and all of the GG's who came after him follow that same path. They all inevitably forsake their dogmatic belief system to help others and to hopefully achieve a more fulfilling life. That's why I think this witch/witch hunter set-up is really neat.

I gotta say... its seriously fucked up for Philip to name the copy of his friend "Hunter" as a shorthand for witch hunter. And that he's been training copies of a man who fell in love with and wanted to start a family with a wild witch to help him hunt wild witches. That is so deeply deranged. Unfortunately for Philip, it's in Caleb's genes to be a decent human being who will always "betray" him. Because no version of Caleb is capable of being a close-minded and genocidal Puritan maniac like he is.

4. They both have a fascination for wild magic and share the struggle of trying to navigate a magical world without inherent magical abilities. And I do think if we were actually given more friendship development between them, Hunter would have actually learned how to use glyphs. Luz could learn what artifical magic is and maybe try to use it alongside wild magic.

5. Okay so I'm just adding this one because it makes for an interesting dynamic:

Luz: "At least you have your future figured out for you."

Hunter: "At least you can figure out yours."

6. Complimentary color schemes. This is honestly just something I love to see because it always makes the characters look whenever they're in a scene together.

7. Hunter is literally the type of boy she likes. Luz is into older, angsty warrior princes with facial wounds and tragic backstories who have a cute animal sidekick. Yeah im counting Hunter as a warrior type. Because in Any Sport in a Storm, Hunter tells Gus and Willow what kind of dangerous training Belos has put him through. And like... do you see how beat up the kid is? He's clearly gone through shit. And he's... literally a prodigy with artifical magic. While he's not super ripped like Nevarath he's still physically fit enough to chase Luz through the city and climb on top of a building twice, in Hunting Palismen.

Neverath and Hunter share some other superficial similarities: They have the slicked back hair, heeled boots, and where the same exact shoulder armor.

Also in the episode where King and Luz write a book, Luz draws herself kissing a prince who looks suspiciously like a beta version of Hunter. Like... she's into princes my dudes. Anyone who says otherwise is being deliberately obtuse lmao.

8. Luz: "...and maybe meet a hot yet vulnerable upperclassman." Amity isn't an upperclassman because she tells Luz what she needs to do to get into her grade.

9. Hunter is "coded" as a "princess stuck in a tower, kept prisoner by some kind of evil being." Luz frees him from that tower by showing him the truth about Belos. Through finding this painful truth his entire entity as the "special" golden guard chosen by the Titan completely shatters. But through this shattering he can make a new, authentic identity and start a new life with people who actually love him. I really dig this kind of subversion of the princess stuck in a tower trope honestly.

10. Luz telling Eda that she met someone very interesting in Latissa (the city in Hunting Palismen) and referred to Hunter as "a bad but sad boy". Hunter has a very funny reaction to her comment. His whole head blushes and he acts like he wants to give the human a piece of his mind. He's acting as if he wouldn't bend like a twig for Luz if she got in his way, again. Absolutely adorable on Hunters part.

11. Hunter would have never met Flapjack if it wasnt for Luz. Luz guided Flapjack directly to Hunter and showed him that even though hes made from wild magic he isnt dangerous. Edit: Without her he would have never gained his strongest system of emotional support. We also have to add this to the Caleb/Hunter parallels as Hunter is the only version of Caleb he's taken an interest in.

Now I want to talk about the more questionable writing choices that don't make sense to me:

1. What happened after Hollow Mind is incredibly OOC for Luz, Eda, and King. But I just want to highlight how OOC it is for Luz, specifically. It doesn't make sense for Luz to not go after Hunter. She literally saw what Belos does to the golden guards who "betray" him. She knows Belos will send scouts out to look for him. But she just lets him run into the woods in the middle of the night. She doesnt know that hes actually going to Hexside. Its not like he can outrun her because she can just use Edas staff to catch up to him. It doesn't matter how fast Hunter is, a staff is always going to be faster. And if she loses sight of him Flapjack can just take her to him. She doesn't make any attempt to go after him and even stays at the Owl House all night.

This is straight up bad writing. And the only reason why it's like this is because the writers thought it would have been too weird for Luz to spend a night comforting a boy who fits her type in boys and has more in common with her than her girlfriend does. Seriously, what other explanation is there? How else can you explain this OOC writing choice? Luz and Hunter NEEDED this bonding moment. Hunter needed someone there for him after his preconceptions of himself were shattered completely. He needed a strong support system, and he should have got that with Luz, Eda, and King.

But he doesn't get that. Luz, Eda, and King let him run away into the night. And then Luz decides to leave with King to find his family WITHOUT MAKING SURE HUNTER IS OKAY FIRST FOR A WHOLE WEEK.

Excuse me!? She's not even going to make sure Hunter is safe even though she knows Belos wants to kill him? For all she knows he could have fallen to his death in some ditch in the woods. And as you can see by the scratches on his face he DOES hurt himself during to trek from Eda's house to Hexside.

OKAY I GUESS.

Yeah it's totally in character for Luz to leave a kid who just ran out of her house having a full blown panic attack to run off to God knows where in the middle of the night. Knowing full well that the main villain wants to track him down to KILL HIM. And that Hunter, being a literal prince, probably doesn't know how to do basic shit for himself like cook or clean his clothes. Which by the way we get visual confirmation that he doesn't know how to do any of that. The next time we see him hes wearing stained, poorly patched clothes and eating food Flapjack finds in the trashcan.

Also why was it so imperative that Hunter had to go to Hexside and not go into hiding with Lilith and Eda? Seriously, he could have gone with Eda and Lilith when Luz had to leave with King.

What should have happened is that after Luz and Hunter spend the night comforting each other Hunter decided that Luzs suggestion of going into hiding with Lilith and Eda was his safest option. While Hunter and Lilith aren't exactly on great terms at least he knows her. And it's better for a child like Hunter, who doesnt know how to cook or even clean his clothes, to be with two adults who know how to and can teach him how to do that stuff. But more importantly this gives him the chance to learn wild magic so he can have more firepower when he inevitably faces off against Belos. And ya know... he can give Lilith and Eda some insider information about Belos only his former right hand man would know. This would have certainly been better than leaving him to fend for himself for a full 7 days.

2. Removing Hunter blushing from Hunting Palismen is weird to me. Was this removed as a way to deter people from shipping them? Because if so then... it didn't work. Because blushing doesn't consistute as romantic development. I know this show thinks that having two people who like each other blush alot at each other is thrilling romantic development... but it really isn't. Besides, Hunter and Luz got alot of interesting story bits going for them that can't be taken away from them just because you remove this one moment.

#lunter #goldenluz #these two are so unintentionally romantic it drives me crazy

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master-of-the-railway · 4 months

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I just realized. If I'm doing my math right. The replacement Golden Guard for Hunter would be like...10 years old. This poor kid is so young and he's about to endure so much hardship. And it's not even just the horrors of being raised by Belos in the emperor's coven.

He doesn't know much about Hunter. All he knows is that he was 6 when uncle lost him. According to uncle and most coven heads and members, the two young "witches" looked the exact same, which makes it hard for the poor emperor to look at him sometimes. This kid doesn't know that Hunter is alive and happy in a different world learning to be a train conductor. And if he did know he'd probably resent Hunter for it once his eyes were opened to how horrible this life was.

Imagine going through the constant manipulation and hardship of both being Belos' "nephew" and being a member of the emperor's coven. The trials. The punishments. And then finding out you have an identical copy who escaped this hell at an age far younger than you and has lived an amazing life. Hunter got a cool big brother and older cousins (cousins plural as Patch and Lily are practically family to the magic conductors) to play with and make memories with. He had MC there when he had nightmares, they played games together and ate breakfast together in the light of early mornings. Hunter would spend his days hanging out with Patch and Lily in Shining Time, having tons of fun no matter the season, but especially in summer. He was signed up for therapy and has learned how to manage the residing trauma that he did experience in his time in the demon realm. He's best friends with a young witch girl and a little "demon" and a human girl who while not magical is the best friend he could ask for. He attends many festivals on the Island of Sodor and he's friends with all of the trains there. Hunter's lived a life of playing in the river, staying up late to watch TV with Lily on the weekends, watching the fireworks from a high point on Sodor while he sits on Henry's buffer beam and nestles up against the big green engine, getting to watch Donald and Douglas plow snow while he drinks hot cocoa with Wendy.

And then you have his replacement. No support system, nobody who truly loves them the way Hunter has been loved. Darius, and eventually Raine, are the closest that kid gets to support, as those witches aren't even fully committed to the emperor and behind his back they run an entire rebellion with the most wanted witch on the isles. But they can't always be there. Most of the time the poor Golden Guard, who was crowned such far too young, is all alone in the world. He would absolutely hate Hunter for a while. None of this was Hunter's fault, he'd ended up in another world completely on accident, but he lived a life that this little 10-year-old grimwalker could only imagine living.

#ttte #thomas and friends #thomas & friends #toh #the owl house #im gonna count them as-#toh oc #the owl houe oc #grimwalker oc #my oc #crossover #crossover au #my au #my crossover #On The Horizon (ttte x toh)

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random-dragon-exe · 11 months

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Ok but like, an AU where the hexsquad stays in the Boiling Isles and the Covenheads recover quickly, then go through the portal and into the human realm to escape the collector.

(For the sake of the AU to work, Eda was the one clever enough to remember her curse and she cut off her arm herself, then the Covenheads recovery was quicker and try to find a way to escape by going to higher ground. Terra and Adrian see the Portal and make a run for it and the others follow suit. Raine follows to say that they don't want to leave Eda and the others but Darius drags them with him to get to safety. Terra and Mason get greedy and knock the Hexsquad away from the portal. Luz and the others try to catch up but it's too late as the portal closes and ends.)

Think about it. It'll be played seriously as they try to find a way back. Of course, there'd also be some humor too about them being stuck in a different world.

Raine and Darius would share the single braincell trying to hold everyone together. Raine is the one who suggests that they lay low while trying to find a way back.

Then Raine gets the idea that they need to not only hide their ears, but also need to blend in with regular human clothes. (So naturally, they have to resort to stealing clothes ATLA style.)

They'll also have to do some small accommodations for Vitimir's legs, Hettie's horns (if they're horns it could be a headpiece we don't know) Terra's hair, Osran's extra hands, and Adrian has to just hide his tail with an illusion.

They also pass off Eberwolf as a type of feral wolf they keep as a pet.

They keep shelter at the portal house and Mason is the one to repair it up a bit to make it more livable. (Albeit, with Terra's floral but deadly touches as decoration/security)

Of course they don't get along, but they do their best to put it aside in order to find a way home and stop Belos. (Terra and the Covenheads that were previously loyal to Belos now just want to get some revenge for being manipulated the entire time.)

In terms of food, they resort to stealing food from markets via illusions and sneaking around since they have no idea how human currency works.

About the Rebus, Mason finds it while remodeling the interior one day, coincidentally around Halloween-time. (since it's Halloween they don't need to hide their ears and one tail, people will think it's a costume.)

They try to decipher the rebus but to no avail, so they have to resort to asking someone and of course they run into Masha and they help.

Darius notices the golden guard symbol again and Raine notices the statues of the Whittebane Brothers where one looks like Belos.

For a small break they decide to sit down and watch Masha's retelling of the "Brothers Whittebane". During the ride, Darius notices the bird that looks an awful lot like Hunter’s palisman.

It isn't until after that one by one they piece together that Belos came from the Human realm and was one of the brothers on the statue. (They don't know what happened to the other brother though.)

Then Darius notices something in the woods and goes after it. The others follow and see Belos possessed Darius and they fight him and manage to get him out of his body.

The try to fight him again to defeat him but it doesn't work. Darius is severely hurt so she stays back to heal him. (This time, while they're fighting Adrian manages to look inside Belos’s mind via a similar spell that doesn't need an amplifier.)

Belos manages to escape through the portal, and with Darius healed within time, they quickly go in through the portal.

I really liked this sudden idea I just had to share.

Also yes Darius is the equivalent to Hunter here because of his connection to the previous golden guard.

And Adrian is the equivalent to Gus in this scenario (in his own twisted way) because he has the magic to look into a person’s memories. (Then it'll come up as he pieces it together that Belos killed his brother and made him into a grimwalker.)

Then Darius has to face the fact that Hunter is a grimwalker as well as the previous Golden Guard.

What can I say except that I live for parallels?

I may do a part 2 of this for how the rest goes, who knows.

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weaselbeaselpants · 2 years

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Final PhiliBelos observation for the night

A lot of people are pointing out how Philip's old coat is probably Caleb's, which Philip wore in trying to 'rescue' his brother from witchlovins. And, while I do think that's true I also personally headcanon that Philip had a parasocial bond with Caleb, i.e. he not only missed and idolized his bro, he was also deeply jealous of Caleb, just maybe not in ways he fully realizes because of course he doesn't.

One of my prequel comics had tiny!Philip declare he was going to have "80 kids" with a wife despite witchhunters not doing that, and that ties into said headcanon; Philip was the one who really never fit in and was always eager to impress in the human realm. Philip desperately wanted to be the cool kid, but if his adult self in Elsewhere and Elsewhen is anything to go by, he inevitably always fails because he's really a manipulative bastard jackass who's idea of freindship is actually just using people; His diaries show how dedicated he is to his main character-syndrome and how he really wants to be the distinguished-looking-down-on-others grand adventurer; Everything about PhilBelos is self-fufilling prophecy and work-upon work as he played such a long-con to get to where he was at the start of the series- but like all children's show villains, his fatal flaw is he doesn't consider others' feelings or capabilities, and so all his schemes actually end up falling apart because he only ever uses other people who then turn on him; it happened with Luz and Lilith= it happened with Kikimora - Collector - OG Caleb since he couldn't just accept Caleb's new life and happiness - and definitely with all of Caleb's grimwalkers up to Hunter, whom he literally disapatches every time they manage to escape him. Like all good villains, I love wehn Belos breaks down and shows weakness and he's always at his maddest when mofos are in his way or unravel all his "hard work". He, even more than most villains, craves success.

Caleb naturally got all Philip wanted. Caleb found

A place where he was accepted and otherwise fit in

A girlfriend and was also going to be a father. Till proven otherwise he was prolly accepted into Evelyn's family.

If the Clawthorne palisman trade did come from him, than that means Caleb was admired for his skills and interests.

Caleb did have an epic, real-life adventure because he didn't hate and only think of destroying the Demon Realm. ((I'd be so jazzed to find out Caleb knew some magic and glyphs of his own~))

and most importantly

Caleb got all these things without trying or bending over backwards to make it happen. Sure it didn't last, because Philip fucking murdered him, but regardless of how it ended Caleb led a happy, prosperous life. A life Philip could never have because Philip's own goals are really selfish despite what he thinks to the contrary.

I don't know. It's just a GAAAYYYMMe thEORRie. I find it fascinating. This would also explain why Philip wears his hear back as an adult where, if you go by the pics in his mindscape, he wore his hair down as a kid while Caleb had a ponytail.

tl;dr:

Philip Wittebane has issues: World Shocked

#philip wittebane #emperor belos #wittebane brothers #toh phillip wittebane #caleb wittebane

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yogurthoopsart · 2 years

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Splatoon TOH Crossover Timeline/Concept

This is mainly for my own reference and ill be drawing art/designs for it later but I wanted to get everything outlined in one place. If you've been seeing my instagram you'll have seen some sketches already, but here's the IN DEPTH timeline and concept.

Philip's BS:

Humans are Octolings, and Witches are Inklings. The Boiling Isles is on the Surface, while the human realm is in the kettles.

Great Turf War ends. Octarians retreat underground and keep the militaristic lifestyle. They constantly fight against the Squidbeak Splatoon but fail.

Philip and Caleb are the only surviving members of their squad, and stuck together when reassigned. Their new squad was frontlines, and SUPER anti-inkling. Caleb played along to fit in, but Philip was heavily indoctrinated.

Caleb gets the chance to escape to the surface with the help of Evelyn the inkling, one of the members of the Squidbeak splatoon.

Philip goes after him under the impression that he was taken by force. Finds out otherwise. Kills him. You know the drill.

Ok this is getting long. Putting the rest under the cut

The Clawthornes are weapons specialists and bomb inventors. Evelyn hits Philip with a Fucked Up Bomb that has some sort of slime ooze, resulting in the "curse".

Philip lies low, steals his brother's corpse, and starts foraging for Octarian tech that makes its way up to the surface. He uses Octarian cloning tech (that exists in canon, thankfully) to clone Caleb. Grimwalkers are a go.

Philip finds the collector!!! (Idk how time travel is gonna work here so we're going to skim past that) But the collector is an advanced AI created by humans. It teaches Philip about technology, and Philip promises to connect it to the grid, "freeing" it.

The draining spell is a Giant Ink Canon (like in octo expansion). He's gonna use the blended Dna sludge ink (which he gets from "petrifications" of "wild witches") to wipe out all life on the surface.

Philip is now Belos. He cuts his round ears to blend in, and starts preaching about "Main Purity". Basically no one should have more than one main for the good of team balance. Each main has a color associated with it probably? Covens are called Clans, and each clan focuses on one weapon type.

He becomes Emperor. He edits inkling society into something more militaristic, resembling Octarian society. Think like... if everyone only cared about Ranked Mode. It sucks.

Clan Association Intermission (literally just went by vibes for this one):

Bard: Brushes

Construction: Rollers

Beast Keeping: Shooters

Potions: Blasters

Plants: Splatlings

Illusion: Dualies

Healing: Chargers

Oracle: Brellas

Abomination: Sloshers

Emperor's Clan: All

Idk about splatanas and trishots yet lmao

EDA TIME:

Eda is an inkling who is incredibly cracked at every weapon. She's SKILLED. She's a blaster main. She destroys. the only thing is that she goofs off too much. Squidpartying in ranked, painting amongus and hearts with the brushes, etc.

Lilith is good (squiffer main in my heart, Bella secondary), but not as good. She wants to join the Emperor's Clan with Eda, where inklings can use every weapon, but only one of them can make it. She finds a sample of Feathery ooze and infects Eda with it.

The "curse" turns Eda into a bird monster if she runs out of ink.

Eda finds a kettle to the surface. This is the portal.

Relationship with Raine is the same, not much changes. Raine is a brush main tho. Imagine Raine using a killer wail in place of the whistle during the Covens Vs Wilds game.

Eda finds King!!! King is a salmonid Chum, but is actually a King Salmonid Spawn. We'll get to that later.

Eda starts selling octarian tech she finds when she goes through the kettle! Her "potion" business is a bomb business. She also probably illegally mods her weapons a-la grizzco, making her the most powerful Inkling on the surface.

Season 1 - Luz time babyyyyy:

Luz is a young octoling obsessed with AZURA, and inkling idol group from the surface. Has only ever used an octoshot. She doesnt fit into the military-like society of the octarians, and is sent to boot camp by Camila.

Camila is an adult octoling, part of the Med Division. She also used to be obsessed with the surface too, along with Manny. Similar vibes to canon.

Luz is lured through the kettle by Owlbert, who im debating between him being a smallfry a-la lil' buddy situation or a sentient auto bomb. Haven't figured that out yet.

We're at the Owl House boys.

Hooty is a zapfish btw. If you care.

THE HEXSQUAD. Willow is originally in the "slosher" track (abominations) but moves to the Splatling track (plants) and She Will Kill You. Hydra Main in my heart.

on that note for the Teenage Abomination episode I can imagine Luz helping Willow mod tf out of a explosher for her project, or she hides inside some sort of weapon to sneak into class somehow.

Gus the dualie main. He kicks ass and does flips. Head of the Octarian Appreciation Society.

Amity mains sloshers in my heart, probably also dabbles in the really hardcore shooters like splattershot pro or 52. gal. The Blights are super expensive/professional weapons specialists/inventors.

Oh my god the Covention Amity vs Luz witches duel. 1v1 final destination. Luz doesn't have a weapon.

Stuff in season 1 pretty much goes by like canon. Luz wants to main all the weapons but with her own modifications (octarian tech stuff). Idk how the whole "Luz is a human and can't do magic" thing translates here, but im guessing it's kind of like... her ink doesn't calibrate easily with the inkling weapons, maybe?

King is obsessed with Salmonids instead of demons. The Intruder is him trying to teach Luz about "his kind", ie the salmonid bosses. This is also going into season 2 territory, but his section of Knock Knock Knocking on Hooty's door is them trying to figure out which boss salmonid he is (which he isn't one. He's a KING salmonid).

OH the petrification ceremony is Eda about to get Blended like in onto expansion.

And Luz's witch's wool cloak is modeled after agent 3's cloak in onto expansion. It's ink resistant.

The Belos vs Luz fight is just Luz w her octoshot trying to keep up with an X Ranker. She gets a lucky shot with an ink mine though.

Season 2

Belos has the damaged kettle. Lilith and Eda are both infected by the feathery ooze. Luz starts learning about More Weapon Types and Mods (glyph combos).

PHILIP'S DIARY. It's a video diary. I'm imagining its projected from a squee-G.

HUNTER is an octoling. His Golden Guard main is the octobrush (the golden guard staff).

Ok I JUST remembered purblethinkin did an octoling hunter design and also gave him an octobrush and this is EXACTLY what I was thinking. The kelp. The Golden octoling goggles. Yes.

Im starting to like the whole "Sentient Autobomb being Palismen" thing. Robot Flapjack. Either that or Lil Buddy flapjack.

VEE!!! There's two options for Vee. She's either a sanitized inkling or a fuzzy inkling.

The fuzzy inkling thing would fit better with her whole "technically im not supposed to exist" speech, since mammals are extinct, but Sanitization fits better with Belos's plan to wipe out all life with his sanitized ooze canon. Idk yet, could go either way.

The entirety of Yesterday's Lie is instead of Luz appearing in reflections, she appears in the loads of electronic screens underground. The beta portal they make is a communication device to connect underground.

Jacob Hopkins is an inkling conspiracy theorist lmao.

Stuff is p much the same as canon.

Oof. Hollow Mind. uhhh. It probably takes place in Belos's secret lab instead of his mind. the teleportation spell/walkie talkie is a super jump beacon.

The Titan Trappers are grizzco-like. King Trappers. They dress like salmonid chum/cohocks/smaller versions of cohozunas.

KING'S TIDE. King's salmonid powers are golden egg adjacent, which im going to say he has the ability to mess with technology. This allows him to "free" the collector and connect him to the grid.

Titan Blood is replaced with Golden Eggs in general btw.

Belos's curse turns him into a mud/ooze/sanitized ink creature.

OH the Sigils. idk about them. They're not really necessary since the canon is gonna kill Everything regardless of if they're in a clan or not. They're probably just licenses.

When the collector is free, he takes over all electronics on the surface and sets it up for THE MOST FUN SPLATFEST EVER.

Belos gets splatted (lol) like normal. Except it's probably by one of those octarian machines that the collector can take control of. You know the octobot king and the giant fists it has? Bam.

The Hexsquad ends up underground with Camila and Vee.

Season 3!!!!

Luz goes to school, which is just Octoling training. She's depressed like normal.

I kind of like to think that the underground isn't Intense Military like it used to be in Philip's time. It's generally pretty chill with some militaristic aspects bc they don't have a lot of electrical power.

The two new kids ("give me books about crusty old women") are octarians who LOVE Luz bc they heard about the mods she used to put on the basic-grade octoshots

The gang tries to get a working portal to the surface but it aint workin.

The gang finds the rebus to a hidden golden salmonid egg that can power a kettle to the surface.

Halloween is probably an octarian version of a splatfest/celebration. The Haunted Hayride is mild anti-inkling propaganda warning octolings about the dangers of the surface, using the Whittebane Squad as an example.

Hunter gets possessed like normal. I really want to include the brainwash glasses in this somehow but idk how to do it realistically so thats just on the back burner.

Aaaaand that's it so far! Feel free to suggest stuff. I think I got a general idea of everything though, except the palismen, sigils, and Vee's whole deal.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #toh #the owl house #splatoon toh crossover #crossover #casually combining my two obsessions rn

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lampmanliveblogs · 2 years

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Oh dear… call me Per Gessle, cause here comes every feeling all at once.

(I reckon most of you probably don’t recognize that name, but you might just recognize Roxette)

And yeah, I was just about to point that out, what Vee is saying. Luz ran away from home sure… but she did it to avoid going to a boring summer camp and to go on fun adventures. And her mother was not even ever supposed to know that she was missing. She had every intention of returning home at the end of summer.

Vee on the other hand did not go to the Human Realm of free will. All implications is that she did it either to survive or escape painful memories. Probably both.

I don’t know if Luz has figured out what Vee is exactly just yet. Like I said before, I’m not sure if I would’ve figured out she was a basilisk if I hadn’t been told beforehand. The point is though, Luz should be able to tell that whatever caused Vee to flee the Demon Realm was not simply a lust for adventure, like it was for her.

So I was kinda half-not-really-right about Vee’s name. Vee isn’t her given name. But it wasn’t that she never found out her real name, I misheard what she said. She said ”I’m Number 5.” She is a basilisk and… she shouldn’t exist. Technically.

Is it because your species has been hunted into extinction? Or… maybe, but… a number instead of a name implies… other things.

(Number Five, Number Five… I wonder if she’d like No.1 from the Artemis Fowl books? He’d probably be willing to share some magic with her, he is a very sweet person)

...

WAIT A MINUTE! Is it Vee as in V as in the roman numeral for five?

Okay, so. Things. Many things. Think. Think is hard, head go buzz.

So, firstly and least importantly, I got some answers to questions I had about the timeline of events. I was wondering exactly how Vee ended up entangled in Luz’ life and taking her place and how long she had been l´planning it. Turns out, there was no plan, just winging it. Which makes sense. She saw Luz and an opportunity, so she took it and then accidentally stumbled into the role as Luz. Seeing how good a life she could have, she continued to play the role.

More importantly Lore & Backstory, my OTP.

The basilisks did go extinct ages ago. Details of how/when this happened are not given. My theory that witches hunted the basilisks to extinction is still fairly likely.

However, the basilisks were brought back, somehow, for the purposes of studying how they drain magic. And of course it all ties back to the main man, Emperor Belos. The ability to drain and steal a witch’s magic away is of course enormously powerful and naturally something the tyrant of a magical empire would look into. There are any number of things he might do with such a power. It might’ve been how he created the Golden Guard’s staff, for instance. It might also tie into how he is planning on gathering enough magical power for the Day of Unity. Maybe by combining the basilisks’ power with the Coven Brands.

You know, between the basilisk experiments in this episode and whatever concussion the Grimwalker from last episode is, it seem like Belos has more on his mind than just interdimensional travel, but also some biomagical engineering. He is a man of many talents and also crimes against humanity. Or, uh… witchanity?

Oh, and Vee’s cage was labeled with a V like I thought. Another interesting detail: there were at least two other basilisks that escaped with Vee, Number 3 & Number 4 by the looks of it. I’ll call them Eea and Eve.

(heh. get it?)

You know, the museum dude gave me bad vibes, but I wasn’t sure why, cause he seemed perfectly normal and nice. Perhaps a little too normal and nice, it made my plot senses tingle. We do need a conflict to tie up in act three after all.

So this museum guy is obviously the Jacob Hopkins fella whose name was plastered all over the ”Secrets of Gravesfield” paper in the old shack. He is also very likely the same person who put the camera in said shack and set those traps. We can see that he has an obsession with the paranormal and occult, in particular with witches. This include those good old handbooks on how to find witches, cause those were always very reliable. What’s even more concerning is that it doesn’t just look like he wants to find witches… but to burn them as well.

(in a second we get a better look at the conspiracy corner he’s got going on, where he has several pictures of Eda… including one time when she turned into the Owlbeast)

NO! My snake baby!

(I do wanna point out two things. First, the town symbol shows up yet again, which makes me think it’s gonna be important in a future episode. Secondly, I notice there is an… I think it’s called ”awl” in English? Sharp tool used to pierce or mark materials. Weren’t there like special awls used to ”prove” that someone was a witch? Something about witches having a mark, some blemish or something that felt no pain if stabbed, so they had fake awls where the spike slid into the handle to make it look like the woman accused of witchcraft really was being stabbed. Or am I just making stuff up in my head?)

#the owl house #liveblog #the owl house liveblog #toh s2e10 #yesterday's lie

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proudfreakmetarusonniku · 2 years

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ok info dumping about the old au I had. mostly just precanon stuff bc I just wanna get something out so I can sleep but I can talk about the rest tommorow if u want.

so! during one of eda's trips to the human realm, 6 year old luz ends up stumbling across the portal and accidentally ends up getting herself stranded in the demon realm (and since she’s very frightened and confused, she doesn’t go up to eda, so eda never actually realised this happened).

after a while, though, news of a tiny human child does end up spreading, and luz quickly gets caught by the coven scouts. understandably, she’s terrified and she’s convinced she's going to be killed but obviously that doesn’t happen bc y’know. random scouts aren’t going to kill a toddler for existing. that’s not a crime.

when belos hears about her he’s obviously immediately like “another human lost in this world? clearly it is just like me and caleb and i need to protect this sole other human from the Dangers Of This Realm for reasons completely unrelated to me trying to make caleb 2. obviously.” so adoption (derogatory) ends up happening.

and this Isn’t Great for luz for what are hopefully obvious reasons. being raised in an incredibly sheltered environment by a bigoted extremist who's also really fucking abusive isn’t a fun time. luz does try to escape for a while, and while she doesn’t because she’s six she does end up discovering some pretty secure hiding places. and in hiding, she sees and learns a lot she was never meant to.

still, she's being actively indoctrinated into a cult, so despite what she sees, she still trusts and believes in her adoptive father because she doesn’t know any better. she assumes what happens must be normal or necessary. after all, shes just a silly human, regular old luz who just is completely unremarkable in everything but failure. it bothers her a lot that she can’t do much to help.

when she first arrives, our hunter doesn’t even exist yet, and the old golden guard who was dariuses mentor is still around. i mean by old hes like in his twenties max but that’s ancient by grimwalker standards at this point. he sort of becomes this mentor figure to luz, too, and she really idolises him. she wants to be just like him, in how he's able to do so much without magic. she's really close to him.

which means it hits hard when he's killed. especially since, unseen by anyone in an unnoticed corner somewhere, she sees it happen. it traumatises her quite a lot, though she's good at hiding it and never lets it slip she was somewhere she wasn’t meant to be. when the new hunter comes around, though, she does take it out on this weird new young copy of someone who was practically an older brother to her. not intentionally, and not to like, a huge degree, but she's very distant to him at first.

they do eventually grow very very close, due to basically being the only person the other is allowed to really talk to, and luz stops seeing him as some sort of replacement. after all, they might look similar, but they act completely different! the old hunter was always calm, always reliable, but the new one is young and scared and needs a guiding hand through life in the castle, which luz is of course able to provide.

luz and hunter grow up in quite similar ways. luz is allowed to leave the castle much less- after all, it’d be a shame to lose the only other human left in some silly mission- but she's generally physically harmed a lot less too, though she does have a few scars that no one her age should have. both of them are manipulated and emotionally abused frequently, and are lead along by promises of a false destiny.

while hunter, of course, falls into a blind obedience, luz is privately a lot more sceptical. not that she doubts her papa is trying his best and doing the right thing, of course, but she worries he's going about it all the wrong way. while this makes her more easily swayed, she’s also unlikely to give up her views that wild magic is dangerous even if she realises her life was a lie. clearly, he must have been corrupted from a once noble goal.

she's also desperately lonely, and privately longs for friends that she knows she’s not allowed. when she has the time, she reads and rereads all the fiction available in the library, and desperately imagines herself as one of the young witches in them, able to go outside freely and talk to whoever they like and have adventures! but she knows she'll never be like that. after all, what are the odds she'd ever make it on her own, even if she somehow left the castle despite not knowing how.

(until, of course, a freak accident on a mission leaves her ending up unwillingly in the care of the owl lady, who doesn’t know who she is but knows she’s a human and someone who needs help, and surely it wouldn’t be that bad if she spent just a few days with a wild witch, right? surely she could make a few friends among the populace, right? no one would even know.)

#the owl house #the owl house aus #luz wittebane au #tw harm to children #tw abuse #tw kidnapping #tw self hatred #tw manipulation #tw murder #tw isolation

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acergi · 1 year

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Okay I’m gonna try and put together my prediction for a timeline:

I HAVE NOT WATCHED FOR THE FUTURE YET PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL IT IN REPLIES!!!!

Also, this only has stuff in the trailer, so I’m tagging it with spoilers, but there aren’t really any. I’m putting it under the cut because it’s super long stjrsjsrs

First off, the link to the trailer if you haven’t seen it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIurNjdV-X0

And the promo stuff (cause I mentin them a bit):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_qUdLeKQA8

Episode opens similarly to TTT

So we go back to the DOU. The Collector goes and does whatever they did to the coven heads next. There may be a brief fight (I doubt they could fight for long in that condition), or they never even wake up from the spell and wake up to being used as a puppet.

Based on King’s outfit (by which I mean not wearing those robes), I think this also happens on the DOU. The Collector recogonizes Eda/The Owl Beast, and doesn’t put the weird mind control on her (or tries and it doesn’t work, which could be why Collectors are supposed to lock up all Flying or Swimming things so they last (I think that’s what the book said)). Eda doesn’t win, maybe because she too, was weakened by the spell, and lost an arm (and the collector is crazy powerful), or The Collector vaugely threatens King (or Eda thinks he does and wants to keep King safe). She either ends up locked up by where the coven geads are later seen, or is able to barely escape, but not save King.

Lilith gets away somehow. Maybe the BATTs do too, and I think Hooty? Lilith has a different outfit and way shorter hair, so she must be able to originally get away. Since Eda also does it’s possible she initially gets away. Not many others get away from the DOU.

The parents of the Hexsquad may think the kids are either dead or under the Collector’s influence, since they were last known to be in the area.

Side note: The Collector being called a collector and being trapped in something strongly resembling a pokeball is hilarious to me rn.

Anyway, credits play (or just the show name), and it cuts to the Hexsquad. They do they’re little thing in the forest from all of the New Years promo stuff. If the palisman thing is a trick of the Collector, this happens now, letting the rest of the hexsquad understand the situation a bit better. Since I think they’ll be by the Clawthorne ruins at first, they are in the forest, so all the foresty stuff happens. If the palisman is actually hatching, it won’y happen in the beginning of the episode because that makes absolutely no sense.

I think this is the first place they would go, just to see what’s left and regroup. Some of them may need medical attention *cough* Hunter *cough*. Amity and Luz talk about what happened in the Human Realm/Amity tries to comfort her, maybe Willow finallly does something since she was barely in the last episode. Maybe Gus and Hunter can finally have the Grimwalker/Belos’s memories talk? They decide to go see what’s happening in Bonesbourough/see who they can find/see their parents. I think Willow and Gus live in town, so their parents would be there.

That being said, Amity and Camila are fighting someone in a cave, which could happen more towards the beginning if they are tracking Belos.

Belos has a head start, so he goes back to his stupid cave that he used to live in 300 years ago. He opened it with a glyph combo so I think its his old cave. Can’t exactly have people coming across your genocide plans. I think this episode will be more about the Collector and King, while Belos plans for the finale. I know the blurb says he is also going after the collecor, so maybe this is him regrouping. idk what he’s doing. Maybe he’s hoping he left a palisman in the freezer a couple hundred years ago before he moved out.

Okay the next couple of things happen some time in the middle but idk in what order:

King reads the story to The Collector/we get Collector lore. It seems like there are a bunch of them.

From the handwriting at the bottom, it seems to me like The Collector does not exactly fit in with the other Collectors/disagrees and just wants to play. Also, the last line about wiping everything really concerns me.

Whatever happens to Hooty happens. This could have happened in the beginning and Lilith is just seeing it now which could be for a few reasons:

1. King, who has Hooty manages to escape with Eda

2. Eda gets a hold of him and shows her

However, it is also very possible that this happens now. What’s interesting is that King has Hooty in this shot:

which seems to be Eda trying to rescue King or escape. I would imagine this happens later in the episide as almost a penultimate fight, or a secondary fight while the main fight at hexside is happening, but it’s hard to tell. Either way, I think Eda and Lilith have been camping out somewhere together and this is their daring plan to save King (and maybe the kids if they don’t know where they are). Also, Eda’s curse is starting to come out. And short hair!!

Also, it lowkey looks like the grom tree in the background, so maybe grom is here? The goop thing in the poster looks a lot like grom, and there’s a picture of grom in the memory room later in the trailer.

They go to Hexside where everyone is hanging out.

They look through Luz’s memories for knowledge of Philip Wttebane. I think I saw someone say that they could be looking for that glyph combo he used to get them into the Titan’s skull, where The Collector’s castle seems to be. This gets interrupted by whatever the Collector’s doing. Also, that spider is slitghtly concerning.

Callback to grom, with the grom monster, who I think is going to make a callback in this episode in some way. Maybe in the end of the episode?

Meanwhile, Hunter and Willow are out and about doing some Huntlowy things. They seem to be in town when The Collector and King arrive, so idk what they’re doing.

They arrive in Bonesbourough. Idk why King looks sort of mad. Bump tries to hold them off, but fails, Boom attack, something happens that totally changes things, idk.

I also have no idea what Belos is doing this whole time. Idk what his next plan is, or litterally anything about what the hell he’s trying to do at this point.

#I'll probably think of something else later but oh well #this ended up being really long sorry lol #toh #the owl house #toh s3 #the owl house season 3 #toh spoilers #the owl house spoilers #for the future #toh analysis #toh theory #toh theories

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thesnowyguard · 1 year

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Timeline

Prior to the series- Atlas was the Golden Guard prior to the one who mentored Darius. So he's 2 generations before Hunter. He accidentally found out about his Grimwalker status and that Belos wasn't as kind and benevolent as he made himself out to be. But that's the extent of his knowledge. He ran away and was able to hide from Belos' troops looking for him. Somehow he gets himself put into suspended animation and he gets out 2 years prior to the start of the show. He spends his time on The Knee and eventually makes his way towards Bonesborough, wandering into the Bat Queen's domain. She finds him....tolerable. He's extremely kind to her wards, befriending a few of them and bonding with one in particular. Oyster the Sea Otter becomes his lifetime companion and he helps rescue other palismen before Belos can get to them and brings them to the Bat Queen.

S2E6- Atlas helps out with Palisman Adoption Day. Since he doesn't have anywhere else to sleep, he stays and guards the Palismen over night. He laughs when he realizes Flapjack had gone with Luz and she was bringing him back. He doesn't actually mind that she crawls in after Flapjack. Just means he can go and grab a snack while she watches. However, Hunter manages to snatch them up just as he's getting back. He follows after them and helps out with that entire debacle all the while trying to avoid Luz's questions of "why do you two look extremely similar?" afterwards. He's honestly glad to see Flapjack find a home. He somehow knows Hunter will be the best companion for him.

S2E11- Atlas definitely thinks Belos removing his mask is just a distraction. A world without wild magic? Fuck that shit, did you see what Belos looks like? He knows his uncle is planning more than what he says he is. And if what Eda and Luz says is true, then he's also building a portal to the human realm. But why?

S2E13- Atlas is curious of what goes on at Hexside so he visits to check out the Club Fair. He wishes he could enroll there, but he thinks he's too old to. He is in his early 20's after all. He encounters Hunter there pretending to be a student and he pulls him aside to make an agreement. Atlas won't let Willow and Gus know he's the Golden Guard if he doesn't do something stupid. He keeps the name Caleb in his memory, thinking it'll come in handy later. Seeing as how it was Flapjack that told him that name. Of course Hunter ends up doing something stupid in the end. But hey Hunter got himself a Scroll and now Atlas can keep an eye on him through Penstagram...if he can figure it out himself too.

S2E16- Atlas is over at the Owl House studying up on Glyph combinations that Luz has written down for the both of them to study and practice with. He's desperately in need of learning more glyphs. However, Eda and King immediately run in with Flapjack and he's forced to help them out with getting Hunter and Luz out of Belos' mind. he takes it upon himself to follow after Hunter once he's out of the mindscape of Belos, knowing what he must be going through and wanting to help him through processing what he must have learned.

S2E18- Amity, Willow, and Gus alert Atlas of the fact that Hunter's at Hexside with them after the whole debacle with Adrien. He tells them the truth of who he is. That he's an Ex-Golden Guard as well that somehow managed to escape Belos by accidentally getting himself in suspended animation for several years. They get angry, understandable so. But he has to explain that he didn't know barely anything either. So what Hunter and Luz discovered about the Day of Unity and all that was news to him. About the Collector. He knew the Grimwalker part, but he keeps that a secret between him, Luz, and Hunter.

S2E20- Atlas is apart of Luz's security detail along with Hunter, Gus, and Willow. Going to get Amity and to tell the Blight's about the truth of the Day of Unity. He guards King while the kids go and do their thing, following him and incidentally finding Alador in the process. He doubts they'll be able to sway Odalia, but Alador. King and him fill Alador in on the details, letting him know all about the Draining Spell. Luz is taken disguised as Hunter and the group go after her.

S2E21- He joins the group to save Luz and fight Belos. He's very creeped out by Belos' goopy monstrous appearance. He uses his own glyph magic to help fight, zipping in front of Hunter to protect him when Belos tries to use some guilt tripping on him. Leave his brother alone, you damn freak. He escapes to the human realm with the others once the Collector arrives.

S3E1- Atlas is honestly having the time of his life in the human realm. He uses it as a chance to bond with Hunter even more and he quickly becomes the proud older brother who cheers Hunter on in all of his endeavors. Whether that be learning Spanish or getting his hair cut. He's saddened to learn that sea otters do not live in Connecticut though. That he'd have to fly to the opposite side of the country to see them. Camilla has been very kind enough to let him order some otter plushies from the internet to help him feel better. Oyster seems to like them enough, cuddling with them at night and keeping them safe. His Halloween costume for the festival in Old Gravesfield is him dressed as a vampire. Cause he thinks vampires are fun. He's absolutely beyond PISSED when he sees Belos has possessed Hunter. He's saddened to see Flapjack go, but if it means keeping Hunter around longer then so be it.

WILL BE FINISHED WHEN THE SERIES CONCLUDES.

#✨| headcanons #(this is why I've been quiet the past few days. Been working on this)

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drabbles-of-writing · 3 years

Text

Coming Home

AO3

third owl fight attack! This one’s prompt was “Hunter and Luz being siblings”, and I kinda ran with it

Summary: Saying that Hunter was worried for Luz would be an overstatement. He wasn't worried, he was just...vaguely curious. He knew that she'd take some time in the human realm, to be with her mother, but...well, it'd been almost two weeks, and nobody had heard a single thing from her. So, really, breaking and entering was an entirely reasonable reaction.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Now, Hunter knew, on some level, that Luz would be in the human realm for a while.

To be fair, he hadn’t had much time to think about it, what with everything going on. There was the Grimwalker revelation, which was also a kind-of clone revelation, and Luz offering an outstretched hand, and sitting on the ground in the human realm with the portal flickering and pulsing angrily, the dust settling as he held his uncles broken mask in his hands--

He’d been more than a little preoccupied, to say the least.

And Luz had gone through the portal the second it had all finally calmed, when there was nothing left to fight, with goodbyes he couldn’t remember. He wasn’t sure exactly when, everything had gone pretty numb by that point.

He just knew that after the first two days, when he was finally dragged out of his miserable wallowing in ditches by a very exasperated palisman and Owl Lady, Luz wasn’t there.

The others noticed her absence and the slight hole she left, he knew they did, but they never really commented on it. What with Bonesborough falling apart in a literal and metaphorical sense, everyone was kinda busy trying to patch all of it up. Like dealing with that one demon who kept talking about ancient magic, who was apparently the small rat demon's dad. And making sure Kikimora stopped escaping prison for five minutes. And dealing with the other Coven Heads. And apparently there was some people mad that the old wild witch ways were coming back--

Nobody really had the time to wonder about Luz off in the human realm, seeing her mother again.

And for the first week, he didn’t worry. He had an existential crisis and bothersome witches to avoid like the plague. His days were spent distracting himself by making everyone's lives miserable, since they kept insisting on holding him captive in the Owl House instead of letting him decompose in the woods for some reason. And honestly, Luz knew way too many people, because he’d stopped bothering to keep track of everyone by the fourth hour of being in that house.

After he realized trying to run for it or annoying everyone into kicking him out wouldn’t work, he mostly hid in the dark corners where nobody would see him for hours at a time. Used to be for days, but apparently the Owl Lady was just as nocturnal as him, and they’d run into each other early in the morning when trying to grab a snack.

He had Rascal for company, at least. Say what you will about the little guy, but he was as loyal as he was stubborn.

But, after the first week, Hunter was starting to really notice a severe lack of annoying humans running around.

Apparently, so was the others, because he was noticing a few of them beginning to get a little antsy. He would’ve brushed it off, but he could hear a distinct influx of mutterings that sounded like ‘Luz’ and ‘portal’ and ‘human realm’ from his hiding places, when they thought no one else was around.

It was almost halfway through the second week before he knew it, and that was far too long for Luz to be away without so much as a note.

And she was probably fine, he reasoned. But Luz being away without even a call was suspicious enough, two was downright concerning.

By then, Hunter was somewhat starting to recognize the faces that filtered in and out of the Owl House, and he began to plan.

Somehow, he managed to wait until he saw a girl with familiar purple hair step in through the doorway, speaking words he didn’t bother to listen to as she sat on the couch he was hiding under.

Rascal had, of course, chosen to perch himself on the head of a chair across the room, where barely anyone would care to notice him.

She was talking to some small illusionist he saw earlier (he may recognize faces, but names were a whole other matter. He’d never had to memorize names unless they were important to Belos, and if they weren’t, they were irrelevant. He should probably work on remembering their names), something about buildings and repairs or something, it wasn’t his problem. When the illusionist stepped away, off towards the kitchen to grab something, Hunter decided to poke his head out from underneath the couch.

“So what's the word on-- ow!” He yelped, jerking back under the couch when he got a foot kicked into his nose.

“Titan, don’t do that, you prick!” Amity snapped, inching a little further to the left as Hunter peeked out only one eye from under the couch this time, giving his best spiteful glare. “Why are you even down there?”

“Because nobody bothers me,” Hunter growled, holding his nose as he began to wiggle out. “Everyone’s so clingy in this house, it’s maddening.”

“Do you actually mean clingy, or are you referring to basic kindness?” Amity raised a brow, narrowing her eyes as he stood and brushed himself off from the dust bunnies that gathered under the couch.

“Irrelevant. Why hasn’t the human returned yet?” He demanded, leaning against the arm of the couch as Amity sat at the other end, giving a reasonable distance between them.

“Luz?” Amity blinked, clearly taken aback by the question.

“Yes, is there another, different human that you have to bring up every five minutes I should know about?” Hunter snapped, and got a curled lip and bared teeth from Amity in response.

“What, getting bored of the rest of us?” Amity snarked, crossing her arms.

“Don’t flatter yourself, barely any of you were entertaining to begin with.” Hunter huffed. “Now do you know why the human is avoiding us or not?”

“Avoiding?” Amity frowned. “Luz’s not avoiding us, she’s just visiting her mom.”

“With radio silence for almost two weeks,” Hunter said, doing his best to stamp down his impatience.

He really would have rathered asking the Owl Lady about this, but he’d learned from the last time he tried that she’d twist any conversation regarding Luz to be about him, so the next logical best bet would have to be her incessant, chattery, girlfriend. Titan, Luz had the weirdest tastes.

“She’s been away from her mom for four months.” Amity said, rolling her eyes like this was some concept he wasn't understanding. “She’s not gonna see her for a day and then come right back.”

“But still!” Hunter threw his hands in the air, ignoring Rascal’s minorly concerned chirp from across the room. “You think someone like Luz would go without contact for almost two weeks? She would’ve at least popped in to say hello, or go on some ramble about what’s going on in the human realm. She’d feel guilty about leaving you guys to repair everything on your own by the second hour.”

“It’s just...taking her a minute,” Amity said, and that was the first small crack in her resolve he saw. Had she not seen him at his lowest the first time they spoke, he would’ve been proud of the fact he could chip away at her far easier than she could at him. “Luz wouldn’t avoid anyone out of the blue, that’s not like her.”

And he knew she was right on that, as infuriating it was to admit it. Luz wouldn’t abandon people, she’d be more likely to keel over on the spot from spontaneously growing a bile sac. And perhaps a part of him was being a little over dramatic, but there was just this little twist in his chest that curled tighter when he considered going back to hiding in empty rooms and letting everything continue on, waiting to see if anything would change rather than making it change.

“Besides,” Amity continued. “As Luz’s girlfriend, I think that I would know if--”

“Oh Titan, just forget it.” Hunter groaned, tugging on his ears as he stepped away from the couch. “Whatever, you’re useless about this, anyway. If you don’t know when she’s coming back, and the Owl Lady doesn’t know, then nobody will.”

Amity stayed silent for a moment as Hunter stormed off towards the doorway that led to the staircase, Rascal flying off his perch to land on his shoulder with soft, almost melodic chirrups.

He contemplated if he could steal something from one of the spare rooms up there. Everyone was fluctuating between them the last few days, but they often left their stuff in there for him to take. It was fun watching them get so riled up about their missing junk.

“We,” Amity started, and Hunter paused in the doorway, one ear pricked. “We were planning on going into the human realm,” She admitted, voice quiet. “If we didn’t hear anything from Luz by the end of this week.”

Hunter turned around then, noting Amity had one hand bunched up on her leg, fisting the hem of her shirt and rubbing her fingers between it in a nervous tick. She avoided his gaze, and he saw, for just the briefest of moments, the uncertainty spilling off of her, possibly having been doing so for far longer than when he’d noticed the same signs from everyone else.

“Well,” He said, and she looked up at him then, and the vulnerability was gone in a snap, replaced by a curious, slightly accusatory, expression. It unnerved him how familiar it looked. “By all means, don’t go telling me about your super secret rescue missions, not like I’d want to join.” He muttered.

“Count it a blessing that I told you at all,” Amity hissed, ears flicking back. “Maybe if you promise to be nice, we’ll let you come along.” She taunted.

“Maybe if you people hadn’t kidnapped me, I wouldn’t be causing so many problems.” Hunter growled back through gritted teeth, breaking eye contact for only a moment when Rascal lightly bit and tugged on his ear, trying to urge him away.

“Like you need an excuse--”

“Uh, am-am I interrupting?”

The two turned their heads, realizing that the small illusionist, he’d figure out the kids name later, was standing in the living room again, a box of juice in his hands as his eyes flicked between them.

“No, Golden Boy was just leaving.” Amity waved him off, leaning back against the couch.

“You weren’t even clever with that one, Blight.” Hunter sneered, rolling his eyes as he turned to leave.

“Wittebane.”

“Call me that again and I’m ripping your teeth out.” Hunter threatened, pointing a finger at her as he backed out of the room.

“No name,” Amity amended, sticking her tongue out at him.

“You are on thin ice.”

That night, Hunter was opening the window in Luz’s old room.

His escape attempts had never really worked before, the weird tube demon in the front door took his job of keeping him contained very seriously. Everyone else just liked watching the show and tapping in when needed.

However, he also knew, from the mutterings that Luz had told him in those few snatches of time in the days that they had talked before everything went wrong (or right, depending on who you asked), that she’d snuck out through her window multiple times without the demon realizing. Apparently she had bribed him once or twice, and now he barely reacted to the sound of her window opening, sort of like a reflex.

He’d meant to use it for his next escape attempt, just to see if it’d work for him, to run for the hills if it worked, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He’d be damned if they left him out of nabbing Luz from the human realm.

So Hunter tugged his cloak tighter across his shoulders, despite it being torn in many places, he had yet to rid it completely, and slowly opened Luz’s window.

He waited, tense, Rascal just as silent from within his hood. When there wasn’t the sound of a piercing voice after a few seconds, he cautiously poked his head out.

Nothing.

Either the bird really had grown to have no reaction to Luz’s window opening, or he was just as tired as everyone else. Or off eating bugs, that was plausible.

He slowly edged out, only having a moment to peer down at the ground below until he swung out of the window, hands gripping the windowsill as he edged himself down.

He hung in the air for a moment before releasing the windowsill, dropping to the ground below in a crouch. The perks of the Emperor’s Coven were few and far between, but hey, living there had made him an expert at being quiet.

He darted around the Owl House, crouching so as to avoid being seen through the first-floor windows, because there was always someone awake, no matter the hour. The portal to the human realm had been moved not too far away, but far enough that it couldn’t be, you know, automatically seen by anyone approaching the building.

He spared one last glance towards the house before he booked it off towards the woods, already mentally cursing himself for wearing a white cloak in the middle of the night. Why did he think that was a good idea, why did he think that was a good idea--

He made it to the cover of trees, somehow, without anyone sounding the alarm. He ducked behind a tree, catching his breath for a moment as he waited for shouting to arise.

Upon realizing he was in the clear, he pumped a fist in the air with a soft “yes!” and got an encouraging whistle from Rascal, who he gave a quick scratch on the head to.

He then hurried a bit further into the trees, soon faced with branches, vines, and bushes all stretched out across the beginning of a slope before him.

He reached out, grabbing one of the vines and yanking it aside, revealing the structure of the portal to the human realm, its soft humming mostly muffled by everything covering it. He ran his hand down the exterior of it for a second before pushing more vines aside, allowing a small enough space for him to crawl through.

He’d been to the human realm before, technically. Belos’s wrath had only just begun to reach into the human realm before he had managed to be stopped, and Hunter had a few moments out there, feeling the grass and seeing the trees. They really were green, and he couldn’t help but see it all and know with certainty that there was no magic within any of it. Hollow. It was a feeling he was familiar with.

But this time was different, and he inhaled for a moment before giving Rascal what he hoped was his best determined look.

“Alright,” He said. “Let’s see what’s been keeping her.”

He spent about half an hour in the woods of the human realm until he managed to find Luz’s house.

She’d never really said where she lived, just that it was the closest house to the forest. Nothing about directions, so he spent his time wandering about trying to find a house that wasn’t falling apart.

Rascal gave up and eventually flew off at some point, returning about five minutes later, chittering loudly and pulling on his hood. Hunter knew better to argue, and had followed until he came across a house that actually looked lived in, as opposed to the one he’d appeared in.

“If you led me to a random person's house, I will throw you into the sea.” Hunter warned, only getting a cheery whistle in return as he walked around the house.

He eventually found a window on the first floor, and pushing on it, was delighted to find that it was unlocked. He opened it, hoisting himself inside as Rascal darted in.

He realized the window was right over a kitchen sink, and lightly stepped a foot onto the counter beside it. He slowly swung himself inside, not even bothering to shut the window behind him as he dropped to the floor. He might need that escape route later.

Rascal was off exploring without a second thought, so he allowed himself to stalk throughout the kitchen, eyes flickering over photos and magnets stuck to the fridge. He saw ones that looked like letters, colors, and even saw a photo of a woman and a young, crazy-looking child.

He peeked around corners as he darted through the house, cracking open doors before continuing through hallways. One of the doors he opened looked like a bedroom, but he saw something with a scaly tail poking out, so he let that room be. The human realm was bound to have its own oddities.

The other bedroom he saw did have a person sleeping in it, but she didn’t look like Luz, much too old, so he quietly shut that door again and tried a different one.

He opened the last one, at the end of the hallway, already preparing to snap back that Rascal had brought him to the wrong house, when he took in the bedroom.

He only needed to see it for half a second to see the immediate resemblance to the mess that was Luz’s room in the Owl House. He slipped inside, leaving the door open just a crack in case Rascal showed up.

He crouched, eyeing the posters along the walls, shelves full of random junk, books strewn across the room. The figure sleeping in the bed was practically twisted backwards, blankets already halfway on the floor. He approached it, slowly standing up as he loomed over them, searching their face.

“Oh thank the Titan,” Hunter breathed, stepping back as he pressed a hand to his chest. That was Luz, for sure.

She stirred, slightly, hand twitching as she mumbled incoherently in her sleep. At least she wasn’t actually kidnapped or something, he reasoned.

“Hey, human,” He said, a little louder, but enough that he hoped the others down the hallway wouldn’t hear, shoving at her shoulder. “Wakey wakey.”

Luz mumbled in her sleep again, one eye barely cracking open before she turned over and tried to bury further under her covers.

Hunter grabbed her leg poking out from the blankets and yanked her off.

Luz’s yelp was cut off as he smothered the blankets over her, pausing as she fumbled around trying to get it off, ears pricked as he waited to see if anyone had heard.

“I’m awake, Vee, I’m awake--” Luz pulled the blanket off her head, her glare almost immediately replaced with shock.

“Hey,” Hunter grinned, flashing fangs. “Miss me?”

“Hunter?” Luz exclaimed, before immediately covering her mouth with her hands, eyes darting towards her door like she expected someone to be there.

“Oh don’t sound so surprised.” Hunter scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You oughta step up your game if you think you can escape me in another dimension.”

“What are you doing here?” Luz whisper-yelled, scrambling to her feet as she looked wildly around her room. “Did-did the others come?” She asked, giving him such a scared look he was a little put off by it.

“No? I mean, they will be, I just got ahead of the curve.” Hunter shrugged off her odd reactions. “Made sure I got to you before they did, didn’t feel like being left behind on the ‘let’s drag Luz back kicking and screaming’ plan.”

“Oh no, oh no,” Luz shook her head, one hand on her head as she began to pace. “Are-are the others looking for me?”

“Will be by the end of this week,” Hunter said, watching her curiously. “Why? This a bad time or something?”

“Yes! Yes, this is a terrible time!” Luz exclaimed, barely managing to keep her voice down as she whirled towards him.

“Did you get grounded?” Hunter narrowed his eyes. “Because if so, let me just say, I know about fifteen different ways to lessen the extent of the grounding, and twice as many ways to sneak out, this place isn’t even all that fortified--”

“No! Well, I mean, I kind of am,” Luz winced. “But that’s not--you can’t--you need to go.” Luz said, gesturing back towards the door. “You can’t be here.”

“Do you need a body disposed of? Because I also know a lot of ways to--”

“I’m touched, but no.” Luz gave him a withering look. “Don’t even wanna know why you know that. You have to leave.” She insisted, beginning to shove him towards the door.

“Aw, but I came all this way to see you,” Hunter whined in a dramatic tease, slowly leaning back, therefore putting more strain on Luz as she tried to push him out. “You don’t want to see me?”

“Believe me, I’m very happy to see you’re okay,” Luz assured through gritted teeth, offering the smallest of smiles. “And I’ll bother you later. But now is not the time.”

Rascal took that moment to poke in through the crack in the doorway, landing on a shelf and eyeing the two with what felt like judgement. Hunter promptly dropped all his weight on Luz, nearly crushing her.

“Damn,” He whistled when Luz’s knees refused to buckle. “You got some muscle hiding under those skinny bones?”

“That, and you weigh as much as a half-filled sack of lumpy potatoes.” Luz muttered, already pushing back up to her full height as she took Hunter with her.

“You’re impossible.” Hunter huffed, standing back up onto his feet and snickering as Luz stumbled with the lack of weight. “Seriously, what’s the hold up? Are you getting bored with us already?”

“No, first of all, I’d never do that.” Luz pointed a finger at him. “And I’m offended you thought I ever would be.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.”

“It’s not. And second of all, I’m serious, you cannot be here.” Luz stressed, grabbing his shoulders, a movement that instinctively caused him to flinch, just the tiniest bit. “If my mom sees you here, she’s going to freak--”

“Luz?” A groggy voice called, and Luz stiffened so quickly with such terror crossing her face that Hunter tensed as well. “Creí haber escuchado algo, are you--?”

Hunter saw the door to Luz’s room open, and immediately threw an arm out in front of Luz, giving a quick whistle that Rascal had learned to recognize by now. In a flash, he was holding his staff in his other hand, Luz pushed behind him as he pointed his staff towards the figure in the doorway, ears pressed back and fangs bared in a low, warning growl.

The person froze, eyes going wide, one hand still clutching the door handle.

He recognized it as the older woman he saw in one of the bedrooms, hair still mussied from sleep, the glasses on her face smudged from someone having grabbed them clumsily. The sleep had vanished from her eyes the moment she saw him, a faintly glowing staff pointed only a foot away from her.

“Hunter, Hunter, no, stop!” Luz was quick to grab Hunter’s arm after barely a second of tense silence, shoving the staff down. “She’s my mom, she’s safe!”

Hunter paused at that. Granted, his experience with biological family (as biological as Belos could be) wasn’t the best, but he had heard a few stories, here and there, about Luz’s mom. And Luz would go into a Slitherbeast den for anyone who asked nicely, but hey, he still thought that if someone was willing to fight Emperor Belos for them, they had to be something special.

“Oh, sorry.” He said, all hostility evaporating as he drew his staff back, holding it at his side. “Reflexes.”

“Luz,” The woman said, slowly, and Hunter was so instantly reminded of when the adults dealing with him were trying so hard to not lose their shit that he halfway raised his arm to shield Luz again. “Por qué hay un chico extraño en tu habitación?”

“Puedo explicarlo!” Luz was quick to exclaim, clutching Hunter’s arm, and he looked blankly between them. He’d heard of other languages in the Isles before, often ones spoken by demons, but this was a new one on him.

“Oh estoy segura de que lo harás!” The woman snapped back, hands on her hips now, not bothering to keep her voice low.

“What’s she saying?” Hunter whispered to Luz, eyes still darting between the two. “Is this a ‘we’re about to start fighting’ situation or a ‘you’re grounded for life’ situation?”

“No te puedo creer.” Luz's mom grumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Okay, so, uh,” Luz clasped her hands together. “I promise, mami, this is not what it looks like.”

“What does it look like?” Hunter blinked, giving Luz a concerned expression now. “It doesn't look like I’m a robber, right? Because this place has nothing near worth stealing.”

“Please stop talking,” Luz hissed out of the corner of her mouth, never taking her eyes off her mother. “Mami, this is, uh,” She faltered for a moment. “This is Hunter.”

Her mother cracked open an eye from where she was rubbing the bridge of her nose, sending such a seething glare that both kids shuttered.

“You know what,” Hunter said, letting Rascal transform out of a staff and back into his usual self, letting the bird land on his shoulder as he clapped his hands together. “I can see that you're busy, so I think I’ll just be--why is she staring at me like that?”

The woman was staring at him now, well, Rascal, eyes locked on the cardinal on his shoulder like it had suddenly grown five heads. He flicked an ear in confusion, turning to Luz to ask what her mom’s problem was, only to see Luz immediately face-palm.

“Estoy atascado con un idiota,” Luz mumbled under her breath, and Hunter could pretty easily guess what the last word had meant, and bristled at it.

“Hey--”

“Okay, so, Hunter,” Luz kept her hands pressed together, using them both to point towards him. “Thank you for the visit, really, but I think we’re done here.”

“We,” Luz’s mom finally managed to speak, and Luz cringed with a sheepish smile. “Are going to have a talk.” She growled, though it lacked any of the reverberating sounds an actual growl would have. He always wondered how humans ever got the last hit of their point across without growls or clicks or hisses. He realized now that tone had a lot to do with it.

“And that includes you, young man.” The woman added, turning her glare towards Hunter, and he wouldn’t be ashamed to admit he wilted a bit under it. She could’ve disintegrated Kikimora on the spot with a look like that.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hunter ducked his head, and ignored the quiet snickers from Luz that she quickly tried to smother.

The woman stepped to the side, allowing the two of them to shuffle out of the room. Luz went out first, giving Hunter an expression that was somehow both ‘sorry’ and ‘I told you so’ and boy did he want to punch it.

Hunter hurried out after her, one hand cupped over Rascal protectively, unable to fight back the urge to hide him from everyone and everything new, that he’d be broken in half the second anyone got close.

As he passed her, he knew she was staring at him with a far sharper gaze than she had Luz. He glanced out the corner of his eye, and she was staring at his ears, at Rascal, and just as he stepped into the hallway, her eyes narrowed in on the scar along the side of his face.

He’d had people stare at his scars before, it wasn’t new. Scars weren’t uncommon in the Boiling Isles, but ones as big and prominent as his were generally expected of witches far older than him, far more known for their battles and their victories.

He growled in the back of his throat, briefly twitching his lip to flash a fang. It was near-instinctive at this point, a quiet reminder of who he was, of who shadowed over him, and that it was impolite to stare, to mind your own business.

Luz’s mom jerked back at it, a far stronger reaction than the ones he was used to getting. He was used to a quick aversion of the eyes, hurrying to turn their heads the other way, a simple glance to elsewhere in the room. She stared at him with even more apprehension and worry than before, like she was confronted with a wild animal in her home.

His ears pressed down and he hurried off down the hallway, almost stepping on Luz’s heels from how close he walked behind her.

He noticed an eye peeking out of a room up ahead, and Luz gave a weak, almost teasing, salute to whoever was inside. He saw a flash of scales and what might've been a pitying look until they slipped out of view.

Luz stood off to the side as she exited the hallway, and Hunter stood next to her. He gave her a questioning look, one she nearly missed from how much she was staring at her feet. He nudged her shoulder, gaining her attention, and Luz gave a weak, nervous smile.

Alright, so he was definitely missing something here with his woman.

“Kitchen table,” Luz’s mom said, pointing, and the two obeyed. Hunter had no real reason to, he knew this. She was human, he could just leave, and she wouldn’t be able to stop him. But she was important to Luz, clearly, and he knew, tragically, that he’d feel guilty if he left Luz alone.

Luz sat in one of the chairs at the round table, and Hunter took the one next to her. Her mother eyed them for a moment before taking the one across from them.

“Can I just say, that I did not invite Hunter here--”

“Oh, so that’s how it's gonna be?” Hunter whirled his head to her. “Throwing me under the bus? Sorry I wanted to check in.”

“I am telling it as the truth.” Luz insisted, glaring at him. “Would you rather I tell her that I purposefully invited you here at,” She turned towards the wall, squinting at a clock hanging there. “Two twenty-three? Why did you come here so late?” She demanded.

“Technically, it’s early.” Hunter corrected.

“I’m actually going to punch your teeth out.”

Rascal cheeped from his shoulder, and Hunter nodded sagely like he had said something. Rascal could talk to him, of course, in words that only he could hear, but he often didn’t. And the best part was that he could never prove to anyone that Rascal wasn’t shit-talking them.

“Enough, both of you . ” Luz’s mother said firmly, hands placed on the table that had them both straightening to attention. “Luz,” She turned to her daughter, rubbing her temple with one hand as she gestured with the other towards Hunter. “Explain him, please.”

“Like, life story, or why he’s here, or what he is, or--”

“Just please tell me he’s not from where I think he’s from.”

“Oh,” Luz glanced between Hunter and her mother, gears turning in her head. “He’s...not?”

“Dios ayúdame,” Her mother groaned.

“You told me to say he wasn’t! Actually,” Luz frowned as she turned to Hunter. “Do you count as someone from the demon realm, biologically? I don’t know how that whole, er, Grimwalker thing worked, like are you a direct clone, or--”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, because I’ve been avoiding dealing with that whole situation for the past two weeks, and I’m not about to start now.” Hunter raised a hand to cut her off.

“You…” Luz narrowed her eyes at him. “You need a therapist, dude.”

“You’re the fifth person to say that in the last week.”

“Why,” Luz’s mother cut in again, silencing their conversation. “Is there a demon boy in my house?”

“I’m a witch,” Hunter corrected.

“Don’t you count as, like, half a--”

“What did I just say, Luz?”

“Right,” Luz snapped her mouth shut. “Uh, so, I’m assuming he broke in--”

Hunter groaned, gripping his head in his hands as he slouched over the table. Rascal chittered gently as he hopped off his shoulder and onto the table, nudging his arm.

“--but he wasn’t going to cause any trouble!” Luz added quickly, seeing her mothers expression continue to sour. “He just-he wanted to make sure I was alright.”

The woman eyed the two of them for a moment, and Hunter refused to look up and meet her gaze.

“Hunter, is it?” The woman said slowly, cautious, suspicious, but not accusatory.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hunter sighed, relenting to lift his head, messy hair hanging in his face.

“How old are you, exactly?”

“Mami…”

“Sixteen, ma’am.” He mumbled, resting his cheek in his hand.

“And…” She hesitated for a moment. “How old is that in witch years…?”

“...sixteen?” Hunter gave her a perplexed look.

“They age the same as us.” Luz assured, and her mother seemed to relax just a bit.

“Gracias a Dios por eso,” Her mother mumbled. “Alright, and how did you get in?”

“Window,” He tilted his head off towards the one in question, still open over the sink.

“Of course,” The woman muttered under her breath. “The one time I didn’t lock it. Okay, now what is that?” She gestured towards Rascal on his shoulder, and he raised his hand to let the palisman hop onto his hand.

“My palisman,” He said, settling the bird down on the table, but keeping him a far enough distance from Luz’s mom that she wouldn’t be able to grab him. “I call him Rascal. Which reminds me,” He nudged Luz’s shoulder. “Where do you keep those seeds you have for your palisman? She keeps screaming at everyone and the Owl Lady doesn’t know how to make her shut up.”

“Is she okay?” Luz straightened.

“Yeah, little jays fine, she’s just being a pain in the ass.” Hunter grimaced.

“Watch your language, young man.” Luz’s mom leveled a finger at him, and he eyed it for a moment. “Now what do you mean ‘Luz’s pailsman?’ What in the world is a palisman?”

“Oh, uh, nothing! Nothing important, really. Just, like, staff things.” Luz said quickly, and Hunter and Rascal shared a look. Luz loved her palisman, as bratty as she was. And he knew from experience that Luz didn’t think of palismans as ‘nothing important.’

He drew a hand around Rascal and scooted him a little closer towards himself.

“Okay, okay,” Luz’s mother inhaled a steadying breath, as though to keep her cool. “And you are breaking into my house, early in the morning, to see my daughter.”

“Really just to make sure she didn’t, like, get kidnapped on the way up here.” Hunter shrugged. “Everyone's worried about her, so I took one for the team, and all that.”

“Everyone?” Her mother frowned.

“Her...friends?” Hunter gave Luz a sideways look, and she avoided his gaze.

“Mija, you have friends in the demon realm?” Luz’s mom balked, with the tone of someone who didn’t quite believe it, who almost felt as though they were being tricked.

“I told you a bit about them…” Luz mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.

“You,” Her mother chuckled, shaking her head, the first sign of anything lighter than what they’d had so far. “You really can’t help but be friendly to everyone, huh?”

“It’s how she got stuck with me, it’s a real problem.” Hunter said, and got an elbow jabbed into him for his troubles, wheezing as he clutched his side.

“Well, you certainly are an...interesting acquaintance,” Her mother said slowly, eyeing him, and he barely resisted the urge to briefly flash sharpened teeth when her gaze lingered on the scar across his face again. “And you showed up, by breaking in...just to check in on Luz?”

“Yeah?” Hunter managed to cough out, cracking open an eye to give the woman a confused look compared to her suspicious, searching one. “Why else?”

“...alright.” She said, and her gaze went back to her daughter. “I wasn’t aware that there would be... situations where the demon realm followed you back.”

“Neither did I, really.” Luz was quick to assure, hands raised. “Hunter of all people being worried about me is the most confusing and touching thing that’s happened so far.”

“I was not worried.” Hunter whirled to her. “I only came here because everyone else was, and they were going to leave me out of the rescue party.”

“Rescue party?” Luz’s mother startled, and he should really learn her name.

“Aha, he doesn't mean that.” Luz waved her hands quickly.

“I do?” Hunter narrowed his eyes. “The others were planning on busting out of the portal to come find you by the end of this week. I didn’t want to be left out, so I broke in ahead of time.”

“There are demons coming here?” The woman exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

“Pretty sure the little rat dog is the only demon coming along.” Hunter corrected. “The others are witches.”

“You know his name is King.” Luz grumbled.

“Yeah, but it's way more fun to call him a rat.”

“Luz, cariño, are we going to have more witches breaking in?” Her mother stressed, stepping away from the table and already beginning to pace.

“Not-not when Hunter gets back to them!” Luz said, also standing. “He can tell them to hold off, that I’m fine, and all that.”

“And deal with them getting all pissy I broke out?” Hunter demanded, scooping Rascal up in his hands as he, too, stood. “Hell no, either they hear from me with you there, or I don’t tell them shit.”

“Watch it,” Luz’s mother warned him again, this time only giving a quick glare. “And Luz is not going back there.”

“Then you have two to twenty witches, plus one demon, knocking on your door.” Hunter shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”

“Luz, what did you get into while you were in the demon realm?” Her mother groaned, rubbing her temples.

“I mean, you didn’t ask a lot... ” Luz tried, hovering about two feet from her mom.

“You have two to twenty magical demon people ready to break into our home to make sure you’re okay,” Her mother said, turning towards her daughter. “You didn’t...you didn’t tell me you had friends there.”

“I feel like I just said this,” Hunter squinted. “I told you Luz has friends in the Boiling Isles, isn’t that expected? She makes friends with everyone.”

Luz rubbed her arm and looked down at the ground, and her mother’s mouth twitched downwards for a brief moment. He felt like he was missing something.

“Are all of your friends like him?” Her mother said after a moment, gesturing with a hand off towards Hunter.

“I resent what that implies,” Hunter huffed, ears pressed down as he tucked Rascal between his neck and cloak.

“I mean, personality wise? No, he’s the biggest brat of them all.” Luz assured, and Hunter visibly took offence. “Well, Matt was also a brat, but he’s a friend of a friend, and I think he’s calmer now.”

“They are annoying, though.” Hunter piped up, and prided on barely reacting under Luz’s seething glare.

“Well they can’t come here, your first friend has already caused enough trouble.” Her mother said firmly, and Hunter rolled his eyes at that.

“Please, breaking and entering is tame for me.” Hunter scoffed, and got an even more worried, and possibly judging, look from the woman.

“You're not helping.” Luz whispered, immediately turning back to her mother. “I’m sure we can figure this whole thing out. I can probably get Hunter to tell them to calm them down without me having to go back, Rascal can bully him into it, he likes me.”

“That’s a low blow, human!” Hunter hissed, a low, drawn-out sound that had the woman tensing and Luz only rolling her eyes. “I do so much for you, and this is the thanks I get?” He ignored Rascal’s gleeful chitters that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“We’re even on that front and you know it.”

“Debatable,”

“This is serious, Luz.” Her mother said, and Luz’s mouth clicked shut. “Christ,” She sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d made friends in the demon realm?”

“You didn’t ask…?” Luz said slowly.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Hunter said, leaning against the island counter. “I drag Luz back, she hangs for a day or two to calm everyone down, and she comes right back to have quality family time, or whatever you guys call it, until you’re all finished.”

“Absolutely not,” Her mother said instantly. “Luz will not go anywhere near that portal.”

“It’s not gonna blow up, it’s stable.” Hunter raised a brow, not noticing Luz freezing up.

“Luz is not going back to that demon realm,” She insisted, and he was sure she would be growling if she could. “Listen, could you please just tell the other witches to stay back? I don’t want any trouble from that realm coming through here.”

“Ouch,” Hunter said dryly, twitching an ear as he crossed his arms. “Why’s this got you in a tizzy? I came here to bring back Luz anyway, why is this an issue?”

Luz and her mother met eyes for a brief second, and Hunter knew then he was missing something, because it felt like a conversation passed between their eyes and Luz ducked her head again, ashamed.

“Luz,” Her mother spoke in soft tones, though she was rubbing at her face. “You didn’t tell your friends--”

“I was going to--”

“Luz, honey, you can’t omit details from people--”

“I know, I swear I was just busy trying to see you--”

Hunter set Rascal down on the island counter and gestured towards him. The palisman fluffed his wings before proceeding to peck incessantly on the counter, making a loud clinking noise. It got both humans mingling words to come to a stop as they both turned towards him.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt, but I’m still here.” Hunter said, scratching his bird's head to get him to cease once he had their full attention. “What am I missing?” He asked, pointing between the two.

“I apologize Luz hadn’t informed you earlier,” Her mother started, and Luz gripped her arms and looked away from them both, shoulders hunched. “But she won’t be going back to the demon realm.”

He stared. He blinked once, twice. He could see Rascal staring too, just barely in his line of sight.

“Come again?”

“Luz had been trapped there for so long,” Her mother went on. “And-and she was surrounded by demons and rain that scalded skin and-and Vee told me of Emperor’s and experiments,”

Hunter flinched at that, ears pressing flat as he turned his head to the side.

“It’s clearly not a safe place,” She continued, and her eyes dropped to his notched ear. “And...there’s much to catch up on, to talk about.” She said, in a polite tone that told him not to press that particular matter. “Surely, you can explain this to them?”

Hunter stayed silent for a moment, aware of Luz peeking at him with guilt across her features. He didn’t meet it, he knew he’d get more riled up if he did.

“Yeah, so,” Hunter said calmly, clasping his hands together. “That’s not happening.”

“Excuse me?” Her mother reeled back a bit.

“Listen, Miss...what are your last names again?” He asked Luz, though he still didn’t let himself fully look at her.

“Noceda,” She said, sounding confused now.

“Ms. Noceda,” He continued. “I can speak from personal experience when I tell you that the Emperor and any experiments he had are far beyond gone,” He said, bitterness dripping from his words. “And I-- we have your daughter to thank for that.”

Her mother startled for a moment, opening her mouth to speak, but he plowed on.

“Half the things that made the Isles dangerous, including the very reason your daughter was late coming home, are either burnt to a crisp or in the ground.” He said, holding her gaze. “And I can tell you this, with one hundred percent sincerity, that if I go back and tell Luz’s friends that she won’t ever be coming back, you’ll have witches and demons in numbers nearing the thirties knocking on your front door.”

“Is that a threat?” The woman managed to get out first.

“With all due respect, Ms. Noceda, it’s a promise.”

“Thank you, Hunter.” Luz was suddenly at his side, seizing his arm in a grip that felt like he was losing circulation. “That’s enough,” She said, giving him a warning look. “I think she gets the message.”

“Luz, what in the world is he talking about?” Her mother asked, eyes back to her child.

“It-it’s a long story, but he’s right about the Emperor!” Luz added quickly. “He’s...he’s gone, and-and I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“He won’t.” Hunter said, and left it at that.

“Luz, cariño, I’m sure we could work something out with your friends.” Her mother assured. “I’m glad a man like Vee had described is gone, but I’m sure they would understand.”

“That her mom won’t let her come back?” Hunter scoffed, and Luz tugged forcefully on his arm.

“Hunter,” She hissed, and he looked at her then, and saw the fear practically radiating off her. He wondered if it was something she’d picked up from Amity or vice versa, to be brimming with emotions, but leaving them largely unnoticed until someone actually focused.

“Look, I…” Luz hesitated for a moment. “I promised that I’d stay with her…” She mumbled, and the last piece clicked in his mind.

Luz had promised she’d stay, to a likely terrified mother, and Luz was never one to skimp out on promises. She either kept them or agonized over trying. And it’d make sense why she wouldn’t want to tell anyone, she promised she’d leave forever, and no plans or compromises from the residents of the Owl House could sate a mother worried for her daughter.

Also made sense why she wanted him to leave. Her mom did not seem to like the place, and him being there had to be somewhat breaking the little ‘promise’ of interacting with someone from the demon realm at all.

“Oh,” He said, instead of all that, ears pricking slightly.

“I’m sorry to have it all sprung on you without warning,” He heard her mother saying, though he wasn’t looking at her much in that moment, but she sounded genuine. “But the demon realm doesn’t necessarily seem to be...the safest of places.”

“It’s not,” Hunter confirmed, slowly straightening to face the woman again. “But hey,” He shrugged, feeling Luz letting up her grip on his arm. “It’s home.”

Her eyes dropped to his scar again, just for a moment, and he didn’t bother to hide his eye roll this time.

“Trust me, I’m an outlier in how deadly the place actually is.” He muttered. “These,” He gestured broadly to his face, not quite feeling the satisfaction he assumed he’d feel when he saw her wince. “Were caused by something outside the Boiling Isles, something that never should have been there in the first place. He’s gone now.” He rumbled a growl. “We made sure of it.”

She looked apologetic, and he’d give her that. But she shook her head with a sigh all the same.

“I’m sorry, truly, but Luz and I agreed, it’s not safe. I’m glad she could make friends there, I really am,” She said, and he wondered what kind of friends Luz had had in the past, because she said the word ‘friends’ like it could have five different meanings. “But it’s not safe for her.”

“And?” Hunter threw a hand out in a broad gesture. “It was never completely safe, no place is. You gonna look me in the eyes and tell me Luz would never sneak back out? I’m giving her another week at best.”

“Hunter!”

“Look, I’m really just trying to wrap this whole complication up,” Hunter sighed unsympathetically, aware of Rascal chirping and head-butting his arm. “Unfortunately, I know you, and I know you’d rather wallow in a chasm for eternity than never go back to the Isles. And as entertaining as watching a whole drama unfold would be when your mom would eventually find out, I really don't want to deal with that headache.” He grumbled.

Luz looked to her mother then, and her mother looked back. Luz’s hand was still clutched in his sleeve, watching her mother worriedly as she met her confused gaze.

“Luz?” Her mother said slowly, and Luz fiddled with Hunter’s sleeve.

“Mami, I...look, I didn’t...my friends, they...I don’t…”

“Hi, sorry, can-can I butt-in?”

The three whirled around, Hunter automatically putting an arm in front of Luz and taking a step back at the sight.

A basilisk lay in the doorway to the kitchen, tail curled somewhere out of sight. It was a young one, about the size of Luz. That’d work, he’d taken on bigger before, not like he had any magic for a basilisk to steal--

“Vee,” Luz’s mother breathed. “What are you doing up?”

And of course she was someone they knew. Amazing, wonderful, he loved being out of the loop that there was a basilisk casually within the house, that wasn’t unnerving at all.

“You guys aren’t very quiet,” The basilisk--Vee--shrugged as she slithered in, and Hunter took another step back, his arm in front of Luz causing her to be pushed back as well. “Hey there, uh, new guy.” She offered a small, shy wave to Hunter, and he eyed her before hesitantly returning it.

“Vee, I think you should go back to bed, we were discussing--”

“I know, I heard.” Vee brushed off Luz’s mom. “I actually have an idea for, y’know, this predicament. No offence, but I can't really sleep with you guys arguing.” She said, the wringing of her clawed hands the only sign she was nervous, stopping only when she was between them, with Luz and Hunter on one side, Ms. Noceda on the other.

“Should I be worried about this?” Hunter whispered to Luz.

“Nah, she’s cool.” Luz whispered back.

“What if, and hear me out...we all sleep on this,” Vee said, palms pressed together. “We think it over during the night, and when it's actually light out, we talk about Luz wanting to go back to the Isles and the rules that would have to be put in place. And also nobody breaks in.” She tacked on quickly.

“So you do want to go back?” Luz’s mother turned to her, and he saw the hurt and shock in her eyes.

“I…” Luz looked like she had a ‘no,’ at the back of her throat, and he truly did believe she would’ve said all her mom wanted to say. But he nudged her side, and she looked up at him, and clearly he was doing something with his face, because the empty assurances died out.

“Y-yeah, I do.” She mumbled, looking back to her mom. “I...really, really want to see them again, back in their realm.”

And he avoided looking at Ms. Noceda’s face, because the shock and pain increased significantly.

“Well, I, for one,” He said, ducking around Luz. “Agree with the lizard's plan. Sleep on it, talk in the morning with Ms. Noceda, yadda yadda, all that fun stuff.”

“Camila is fine,” The woman murmured, sounding a little dazed.

“Lizard?” Vee hissed, tongue flickering out as she narrowed her eyes on him.

“Right, sorry, snake fits better.” Hunter said before he could stop himself.

“You have permission to beat him up.” Luz said casually, ignoring Hunter’s indignant shout of “traitor!”

“I, yes, yes,” Luz’s mother--Camila--sighed, stepping back and bracing herself against the kitchen counter. “Tonight has been...a hectic one. It’s far too late to be talking about things like this.”

“Does this mean I can go?” Hunter asked, pointing with his thumb behind him. “Preferably without alerting everyone that I snuck out?”

“I don’t know how you got past Hooty,” Luz sighed, tilting her head and beginning to walk towards the front door with a quick, affirming glance with her mother that both had barely managed to make, Hunter immediately following.

“I escaped through your window.” Hunter said simply, and he noted Camila looking up slightly at that, until Vee approached her, murmuring in soft words he knew better than to try and eavesdrop on.

“Of course you did,” Luz grumbled, opening the front door and practically shoving Hunter outside.

“Alright, alright, I get it, I’m leaving--”

Luz stepped out onto the front porch with him, leaving the front door open just a crack, enough so that she could be seen through it, and in turn could see Camila and Vee talking back by the kitchen.

“Am I going to get a personal lecture?” Hunter asked cautiously, crossing his arms as his ears flicked down. “Look, in my defense, you didn’t exactly explain a lot of things to me--”

Luz lunged, and he stepped back and raised his hands defensively. Instead of a mean left hook he was expecting, he got arms wrapped around his sides, squeezing the air out of him.

Hunter wheezed, and would’ve doubled over if Luz wasn’t in the way. She didn’t let up on her hug, and after a moment of trying to get his thoughts in order, he slowly drew his arms around Luz, chin tucked against her head pressed into his chest.

“I’m glad you're okay,” Luz muffled into his shirt, and Hunter may have clung on a little tighter, aware of Rascal watching this all from his shoulder.

“Feel like you said this already.” He managed to get out.

“I know, I just wanted you to know I meant it.”

And if Hunter tilted his head down to press his face into Luz’s hair then, she didn’t say anything.

“Good to see you still kickin’, too.” He mumbled.

“Miss me?” Luz teased, throwing his words back at him as she pulled her head back slightly, and Hunter quickly did the same to look down at her.

“Hardly,” He huffed, clearing his throat to hide how it cracked halfway through. “I just didn’t want everyone leaving me out of all the fun.”

“Uh huh,” Luz raised a brow. “So you just happened to drop by to make sure I was alright on the one night you actually managed to escape the Owl House without being caught?”

“...listen--”

Luz laughed, and Hunter sputtered over his words. He growled and pushed her back and off him, knowing his face was flushing as he turned away and crossed his arms. Luz’s laughter didn’t stop at that, and Rascal sounded like he was laughing, too.

His ears drooped down and he half-heartedly bared teeth, in what may have been an attempt to hide a smile.

“You’re such a massive pain, you know that?” He growled.

“I do,” Luz grinned, laughter calming down to giggles. “I learned from the best.”

“That, you did. That Owl Lady couldn’t be more overbearing if she tried.” Hunter muttered.

“She’s got a bit of an empty nest syndrome, you get used to it.” Luz lightly nudged his shoulder. “It’s her way of welcoming you to the family.”

And he didn’t even have the time to process that whole sentence, because Rascal was fluttering onto Luz’s shoulder, cheeping as Luz raised a hand to scratch at his head.

“Make sure they know not to worry too much, okay?” She continued, looking up at him. “I’ll try and sort this out.”

“Does that mean you’re coming back soon?” Hunter paused, tilting his head. And maybe there was a tone of hopefulness in his tone, maybe.

Luz hesitated for a moment, frowning slightly in thought. She looked back towards the front door, though he couldn’t see if Camila or Vee were anywhere near it, what with the angle being off and Luz blocking most of it. He wondered if they could hear their conversation.

“I think so,” She said, quieter this time as she turned back to him with a small smile. “I... hope so.”

“So do I, they’ll be insufferable without you.” Hunter teased. “Have fun thinking up how to explain to them your apparent promise.”

“Don’t remind me,” Luz groaned, throwing her head back. “Look, it was a panicked situation, and I didn’t want her any more scared than she--”

“Save it,” Hunter said, not unkindly, raising a hand to silence her. “I’ve made worse spur-of-the-moment decisions. Contrary to popular belief, I know you well enough that you’d never stay away for long. You have a habit of being a people-pleaser.”

Luz relaxed, and raised her hand to let Rascal hop onto it. She offered him back to Hunter, and he took the bird into his hands.

“Still, I’m sorry.” She said, wringing her hands together. “For all of this.”

“If all goes well, you’ll get to tell them that yourself.” He said, and attempted a smile.

“Hopefully,” Luz said, glancing back towards the door. “So, that means you’re willing to tell them what happened?” She asked, a pleading note to her voice.

“As in, I tell them that I broke out of the Owl House in the middle of the night, escaped to the human realm, found you when I knew they were going to do the same thing, and then came back to the demon realm without you, just to tell them you’ll probably be back soon, but I don’t know when?” Hunter said, ears lowering more and more as he spoke, raising a brow.

“...yes?” Luz tried, hands clasped behind her back as she looked up at him with wide, puppy-dog eyes.

“...I don’t know why I put up with you.” Hunter groaned, relenting as his shoulders slumped, letting Rascal fly up onto his shoulder.

“Because you care about me,” Luz teased in a singsong tone, her relief immediate.

“Unfortunately,” He muttered unthinkingly, before the words processed in his head. He tensed right after, eyes locked on the wall behind Luz.

She looked surprised for about half a second before she practically lit up, beaming excitedly at him.

“Anyway,” He said quickly, voice higher than normal, knowing he was flushed up to his ears. “I should be off before your mom gets even more pissed at me.” He said, sharply turning on his heel.

Rascal was most definitely laughing at him now, and he pulled up his hood before shoving the bird into it, silencing him. He leapt down the stairs leading up to the porch, instead of walking down them like a normal person.

“Well, in her defense, you did break in.” Luz reminded, though there was a certain giddiness to her tone as she watched him leave.

“Like you haven’t done it!” Hunter scoffed behind him, beginning to hurry back towards the forest, head ducked low.

“Yes, but we don’t need to tell her that!” Luz hissed, voice notably quieter as she fearfully glanced back.

“No promises!” He called back, a grin forming as he picked up the pace. “Call it compensation for throwing me to the wolves!”

“Wh--Hunter!” Luz squawked indignantly.

He turned on his heel for just a moment, giving Luz a mocking salute before ducking between the trees of the forest, cackling as Luz’s calls of “don’t you dare!” faded behind him.

“Alright, Rascal, prepare yourself.” He said, hearing his palisman chitter from within his hood, with a hint of annoyance to it. “We’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

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