#writing ‘palisman where?’ caused me actual pain

[moistbread]

dadrius reunion huh

extra:

[sergeantsporks]

Interesting to go for drinking for Belos in the college AU but, I think it’d be more canon adjacent if Belos was abusing some kind of pain killer. The Palismen seem to work more like a drug for whatever kind of chronic pain he’s in. They seem to stabilize his mind and thoughts as opposed to him acting like a drunkard after a dosage. So what it seems to me is Belos blaming his pain and Hunter being the target of abuse because he’s “exasperating the pain he’s in with his failure” to procure Belos more. Opioid abuse in particular seems pretty in line with the gradual development of Belos seeking more and more of his painkillers. Despite saying this, Belos probably has always been a cruel person who’d have no qualms hurting Hunter but in recent years he’d have waning patience and he’d always try to make it feel like Hunter’s fault.

Obviously, parallels here aren't... perfect. If I wanted to go closer to canon, I'd probably involve the mafia or drugs somehow, buuuuuuut as is, I want it to be... plausible? Like, maybe this could actually happen! And thus, Hunter just isn't as involved with Belos' stuff because he's like, what, 19, 20 maybe, and disabled? Yeah, in a more real-life scenario, Belos isn't going to be using him the same way he does in canon, because there are just older, more capable people he can use instead. Sending Hunter on dangerous errands doesn't make sense firstly because his age and recognizability means he can't get away with much, and secondly because essential tremor flaring up or something aside, if he so much as loses his glasses he's functionally paralyzed. It makes more sense to send someone else.

The parallels to canon aren't Accident=Curse, using alcohol to cope=palisman, the alcoholism/drinking problem is the "curse." The accident doesn't really still cause him pain, at most he might have some PTSD from the incident that he would drink to cope with (haven't decided on that for sure, we'll see where canon goes). The problem of his alcoholism, like the curse, is linked to his emotion-- drinking more when he's feeling negative emotions, then, like with the curse, he lashes out while under the influence. I don't really have a condition-stabilizing equivalent of the palisman healing him, since I went ahead and just made them regular animals (maybe Hunter can try to steal him a liver transplant since he's probably killing his asdfghjkl). Belos also wouldn't want to be caught DEAD with drugs, because he KNOWS that Lilith hates his guts and would JUMP at the chance to be able to call some feds in to do the job she can't-- it's really cut and dry, one positive drug test is evidence he can't so easily threaten or bribe away the way he can other crimes (like the abuse).

Like I said, Hunter in this AU just... generally plays a less active role in Belos' actions than he does in canon. He's mostly there for Belos' image, to make Belos look good, because look at what a great guy Belos is, taking in his poor orphaned nephew 🥺. Look at how he's given this poor kid opportunities he otherwise wouldn't have had, look at how he took him in even though he has a disability that Belos has to make accommodations for, has to take him to those extra doctor appointments for and isn't he just such a saint for dealing with that? (god, I think I threw up a little writing that). Hunter gets taken to parties and events (which he hates) basically to support this "your friendly guy with a perfect little family of his own :)" charade that Belos is putting up, and his only real jobs for Belos are going to those things and doing well in school and staying out of trouble so that Belos can show off his prize project proudly at those events (which is why it was a big deal for him to get drunk at that frat party, because being a ball of nerves is acceptable, being a social disgrace is NOT). Anyway, accordingly, Hunter's role in taking him down in this AU has more to do with ruining Belos' image-- Eda and Luz try to convince him to make a ruckus and go to court about the domestic abuse, mostly because they want him to get the hell out of dodge, but also because the accusation alone will tear down this image Belos has built up as this saintly caretaker, even if Hunter doesn't win the case (which he probably wouldn't). And if Hunter DID win the case? That sets a precedent that Belos CAN be won against and gives them more options to take him down as more people might be encouraged to speak up against him.

[robbyrobinson]

OWL HOUSE X CTHULHU MYTHOS: GODS AWAKEN (XIX)

Odalia walked into Emperor Belos’ throne room and prostrated herself before him and Nyarlathotep. “Lord Nyarlathotep, I have retrieved the book.”  

Luz and Amity awoke in the original bodies and sprung back to life. “Uh? What happened?”  

Amity groaned and fell backward her head throbbing with pain. “Why is my head spinning?” Her cheeks grew green and bloated out of the instinctive urge of retching whatever sour contents were churning in her stomach.  

“So that is apple blood,” Luz spoke to herself, “after this, I’m never going to try that stuff again.”  

Amity and Luz stared at each other surprised to find that they were back in their own bodies. They waved their hands in front of their faces and squeezed their arms until they took on a bluish hue. Their probing would only strengthen the notion that they were truly back in their bodies. But one thought came to their minds: if they were borrowing the bodies at the time, then what happened to the original host’s souls?  

“Welcome back to the Isles, human.”  

Belos had gotten off his throne and his large frame towered over the two. Unlike Odalia’s height at around 6 feet, Belos stood at a startling 8 feet. He eclipsed obviously Kikimora, his most trusted servant and right hand, but he was also an imposing figure when it came to the members of his imperial guards. This only accentuated the perceived majesty and authority he encouraged from his worshippers.  

Luz stared at the Emperor with contempt manifesting on her face. “Belos.”  

“I see that you are still bitter over our last encounter?” Emperor Belos asked. It was more a rhetorical question, really, but one he made out of amusement.  

“Where’s Eda?” Luz asked.

Emperor Belos raised his hand. “Unharmed, I assure you, but we must keep her from interfering with our plans.”  

He looked at the murals depicting the wild witches. “As you may have guessed I had...taken care of the wild magic practitioners...one by one.”  

Luz internally shivered at the implications of what he was entailing. He raised his staff and carefully traced an invisible line through the savage witches on the murals. “The Day of Unity is now upon us.”  

“How dare you send your hideous monsters to attack my home?” Luz demanded. Her fists shook and turned red to match the increasing anger in her face.  

Belos chuckled. “It was more of a method of ringing you out; I knew that because of your compassionate heart that you would rather give yourself up than allow more of those rats to die in your stead.”  

“Well, you got me now,” Luz stated never taking her eyes off Belos’, “so leave the Earth alone.”  

Belos tilted his head. “The Titan proclaims that the Earth must be laid to waste before it returns to its full powers. There is no stopping the inevitable. The Earth will bleed a deep, gushing red, before it crumbles away to its slow, miserable, pitiable demise.”  

Luz fought the urge of drawing a glyph to cave Belos’ head in. “Mami..”  

Belos’ eyes flickered and glowed. “Oh, your mother? She is here.”  

Luz’s eyes shot up. “She is.”  

The metallic fingers of his gloves came together to create an echoing snap. Warden Wrath walked into the throne room alongside the Owl Spy. Luz’s eyes widened, her mouth hanging agape. A middle-aged woman with dark brown hair and tan skin was brought in with chains. A metal ring was fixed around her waist, and the heavy metal shackles around her ankles echoed on the floor in miserable tune.  

She wore glasses topped with a red frame. From what Luz could see, she was a continually tired woman with heavy bags behind her glasses. Her hair was in a disarray as well as her uniform, one of those outfits you would see in hospital settings. Tears were crudely decorated on the woman’s uniform, particularly towards the bottom where the hem of her shirt was.  

“Mom?”  

The woman looked up to see Luz running towards her. “Luz!?”  

Luz jumped and practically tackled her mother. “Is it really you?”  

“It is me,” she stated. She tried to hug her daughter back with her limited capabilities. “I have been so worried about you.”  

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Luz said, looking down. “I didn’t actually go to that summer camp that you wanted me to.”  

“I am just delighted to see that you’re okay,” she replied, “when those letters stopped coming in, I almost had a mental breakdown.”  

Luz felt moisture building in her eyes. She hated that she had to put her mother through that, but she had no other option in order to keep Belos from getting to Earth. She knew that at some point, the letters that she would send her Mom would soon drain up, but she was the optimist believing that she could find a way back home before her mother had the chance to worry.  

Amity scanned the woman Luz was hugging. “Who is that, Luz?”  

Luz looked back at the young witch her smile shining brighter than before. “This is my Mom, Amity.”  

Her mother gave a smile, but it was more forced given the circumstances. Amity’s thoughts spiraled out of control. “My future mother-in-law?” she asked.

“What was that?”  

Amity quickly caught herself. “Um, your mother and my mother in the same room.”  

Luz’s eyebrow peaked. “Why are you here, Mom?”  

Emperor Belos interrupted the reunion disgracefully. “Yes, why don’t you tell my grandchild why you are here, Camila?”  

The room grew quiet with not even the sound of a pin dropping on the floor could spur any response. Luz eyed Belos sternly. “Grandchild? What are you getting at?”  

“My, Camila, you kept this secret about yourself successfully hidden for years?” Belos asked again.  

“Mom, please, tell me what is going on.”  

Camila sighed. She exhaled sharply now looking at her feet in deep shame. “Luz, you love the Good Witch Azura books, don’t you?”  

Luz nodded. “Me and Amity both; we bonded over them.”  

“What if I were to tell you that there is some truth to those books?”  

Luz couldn’t understand what her mother was saying at first, but it did slowly start to dawn on her. “Are you saying that you’re Azura?”  

Camila snickered a bit and shook her head. “No, no; Azura is a fictional character...but I did use creative liberties when it came with writing the books.”  

The thought that the events of the books, regardless of whether they came about as fictious stretches of the actual events, crossed Luz’s mind. “Why did Belos call me his grandchild?”  

Camila sighed. “When I was around your age, I found myself in the demon realm much like you – I can’t for the life of me remember how if it was through some door or other means – but I was a foreigner in a world that discriminated against humans.”  

Luz listened carefully not noticing that Odalia was singling for her daughter to be taken away.  

“One day, Emperor Belos discovered me with some old scraps of metal and trash and decided to adopt me for reasons I did not understand at the time. He told me that humans were unable to practice magic on the Boiling Isles because of them lacking the bile sac necessary for it, so he placed a bit of his evil, dark magic into my body and took me as a protégé.”  

“So that was why I was able to see those glyphs?” Luz asked.  

“After being trained under him for some time, he told me of the Day of Unity. It was some weird, cultish holiday I had initially taken it. But I soon found out what intentions he had for the Earth, and I fought against him. With his own magic surging through my veins, I easily overpowered the Emperor and...I might have caused him to be in his current unhealthy state of being because I can sense now that Belos is slowly dying.”  

Luz saw discarded palisman carcasses around Belos’ throne. “Was that why you wanted me to stop being obsessed with fantasy books and magic?”  

Camila nodded her head. “It was a selfish thing for me to do, but I wanted to protect you from the knowledge that such a world existed.” She looked at her feet again likely fearful of meeting her daughter’s eyes. “That was why I was hopeful that the trip would remove that desire so you would never come to this world.”  

Luz didn’t know what to say after being given such a bombshell. Her mom knew about the Boiling Isles because she had been there at some point only to somehow escape once things got sour. Now she learned that Belos took her mother in and how she was now his granddaughter. She had his malevolent magic flowing through her body. Her heart was pumping his unholy blood into her veins and through her bloodstream. It made considerable sense because, as was explained to her by Eda years ago, humans could not practice magic.  

“Luz?” Camila asked.  

Luz was still speechless and incapable of reaction. Belos laughed again and tapped Camila’s forehead with the staff. “I was hoping that I could take your daughter in and have her as a protégé to turn her against you, but that plan went awry.”  

He glared at Warden Wrath. “Take her to the execution site.”  

Warden Wrath shook his head and grabbed a hold of Camila. Camila’s legs shook but were heavily weighed down by the shackles. “Luz!”  

Luz tried to run after Warden Wrath, but Odalia shot a blue stream at Luz; it ripped into the floor dividing it in half. “No wrong step, or I will slice you in two as well.”  

“Mom!” Luz shouted. She shot daggers from her eyes at Belos. “Unhand her at once!”  

Belos shook his head. “The sins of the past must be made to pay for.” He exited the throne room before turning around once he reached the exit behind the beating heart of the Titan. “I’ll have my master take it from here.”  

Nyarlathotep, once more in his Black Pharaoh guise, approached the girl. “Hello once again, Luz.”  

“It’s you!” Luz shouted and pointing her finger at accusingly. “Was this all your idea!?”  

“I’m not a man who has pre-made plans just hanging there collecting dust,” Nyarlathotep said with a half-serious tone. “Odalia, give her the Necronomicon.”  

Odalia’s eyes shot up. “Lord Nyarlathotep, why would-”  

“That is an order,” Nyarlathotep replied. His voice went down a couple octaves.  

Shaking, Odalia handed the Necronomicon to the human girl and made her leave. Luz had a weird feeling about this. “What game is this?”  

“When you are literally older than time itself, it’s always best to play a game to take a load off your mind,”  Nyarlathotep answered.  

Nyarlathotep snapped his fingers. Above him was a column wherein a trap door opened. From there, she could see a large, glass cage descending. She squinted her eyes to make out the figures. Eda, King, and Lilith were inside. At the side of the cage was Hypnos, once more in his youthful appearance, flowers and all. He held the piece of horn in his hand.  

“Eda!” Luz proclaimed.  

Eda looked up happy to hear her apprentice’s voice. “Kid, you made it!”  

King and Lilith also turned their glances to Luz. King jumped up and down much like how a dog does whenever they are happy to see their owner come back. Lilith smiled as well, but it was a small one. Luz slammed against the cage’s walls. “Youch!” Luz rubbed her injured nose with her hands. “You guys are alive?”  

“Nyarlathotep took us as prisoners and had us as bargaining chips for you,” Lilith explained.  

“Well, don’t worry, I’ll have you out lickety split!”  

“Wait, Luz!” Eda screamed.

Luz smashed her fist on the glass only for it to bounce back. Thinking, Luz looked into the bag to find something she could use to break the cage. She scribbled glyphs on paper and activated them, but it only made the magical glass stronger. Luz turned to her bag again this time drawing out the jar containing the shoggoth. She tossed it at the cage, but, like with the other objects she tried to use, it rebounded and skyrocketed off the glass. It shot across the room and exited out the door when Kikimora opened it.  

“Luz, you can’t break the glass; we all tried to break it ourselves, but there’s no use,” Eda said at last.  

“There has to be something..” Luz lamented.

“Aye, there is a way, my dear,” Nyarlathotep answered.  

“Why should I trust you?” Luz asked in a matter-of-fact way.  

“The glass can either be broken two ways; either I can use my powers to free the three captives, or an Elder God can destroy it.”  

“Well, I want you to free them!” Luz declared.  

Nyarlathotep held his finger up. “Quid pro quo, my dear, quid pro quo.”  

“Squid pro what?” Luz reiterated.  

“I will free them and you will all go on to live happy lives if you gave me the book.”  

Luz held the demonic book between her arms. “But I can’t just give the book over to someone like you.”  

“Why not?”  

“Because you’re evil; I know somehow you were responsible for the attack on the Earth; a lot of people could die if I gave you this book.”  

“Are a million lives more important to you than the lives of your mentor; her sister; and your pet?”  

“I am not a pet!” King remarked.  

Nyarlathotep ignored the demon and kept speaking. “It would be an unfortunate occasion if they were ripped away from you.”  

“Nyarlathotep, before you do your business with the three captives, do allow me the opportunity to give this demon his horn back.”  

Nyarlathotep looked at the Elder God with suspicion, but flicked his hand. “At least he should be presentable before dying I presume.”  

Nyarlathotep snapped his fingers allowing a small hole to form in the wall. Hypnos slipped the horn into the hole and it resealed after he removed his hand. Eda eyed the horn piece with curiosity. “It looks like it’s the size of your horn, King.”  

She dropped the horn in King’s lap and he sniffed it. “Feels like it; smells like it to...how did I lose it again?”  

He shrugged and dropped it over the crack of his horn. Before he could say anything further, the missing horn piece slipped in like a jigsaw puzzle. A green light glowed around the horn acting as an adhesive glue. In a flash, everything became crystal clear to King as his memories came blasting in at full force. An overtaking sensation. It all came flashing at once: the woman. The large, bat-like monstrosity with the one, three-lobed, bulging eye. The screams. And the smoky vapor – now he could perceive that it materialized together to form the appearance of a man. A tall man wearing a dark cloak. One who was bereft of any strand of hair and his skin darker than the darkest night. The green orb came out from a spell circle the hideous man drew. His mouth was stretched inhumanly widely into a twisted, ghastly grin.  

“Well, what do we have here?” he asked.

King sprawled on the floor of the cage sweat beads rolling down his skull head. He retched but nothing came up. Panic was building within him writhing in anguish for release. He looked at Nyarlathotep with complete hatred. “You were the one who killed my Mom, weren’t you?”  

Nyarlathotep looked at him with an amused smile. “You have to be more specific than that, child; I may be eternal, but that doesn’t mean I have an internal memory box that catalogues every individual scream.”  

Luz gripped the Necronomicon with anger. “So you killed King’s mother and cursed him?” She looked at the despairing demon. “And you decided to take it as a memento to remember your kill?”  

Nyarlathotep shrugged. “As I have said, I cannot be held to remember every one of my little endeavors.”  

Nyarlathotep snapped his fingers again. This time, the top of the cage opened with a gush of running water dropping down. Eda and the others were not too freaked out in that moment, but they could quickly see that the more water flowing into their cell, it was accumulating quickly and already taking the shape of the cage. They looked at Nyarlathotep who in turn gave them a look of humor. They banged their fists against the cage’s walls, but it only rebounded on them.  

“Nyarlathotep! Stop this nonsense!” Luz yelled. “You’ll drown them.”  

“I will free them,” Nyarlathotep promised, “but you will have to give me the Necronomicon in return.”  

“And how do I know that you won’t go against your promise?” Luz asked reasonably. It made sense for her to doubt the Crawling Chaos’ claims, but in her peripheral vision, she saw that the water was already up Lilith and Eda’s waists. King jumped on top of Eda’s head to keep his body dry, but this had the negative effect of pushing Eda deeper into the rushing water.  

“I’m afraid that they don’t have long for this world, Luz.”  

Eda and Lilith were up to their necks. “I always thought it would end by some overdose on potion,” Eda lamented.

Concern was in Lilith’s eyes, but she chuckled at the dark joke. “That’s my Edalyn, alright.”  

Luz found herself in internal conflict. She truly wanted to save the three roommates she had, but she couldn’t just hand a book of such cosmic power to the bad guy. Nyarlathotep seemed to read her mind when he spoke again.  

“I feel that you think that if something were to befall your teacher, you would be lost in the world.”  

Luz squinted. “What?”  

“If you were to give the book to me, I will make you my personal protégé; you will learn about all the secrets of this world and truly become the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. Leagues above your mentor, and even Belos himself. You can reign by my side as I destroy this world and remake it befitting to our image. The universe and the gods themselves will look at you in favor and you would never have the need to want again. Is that a deal?”  

Luz could admit that Nyarlathotep’s deal did have a kernel of her interest. Knowledge over everything could come in handy. While she did love Eda dearly, Eda was at a loss now because of her magic being at an all-time low. Maybe with Nyarlathotep’s help, she could learn a way of curing Eda of her curse and subsequently return her back to her previous state. As she thought, she took another glance at the cage now taken aback. The three captives were completely submerged in the water and were desperately hitting the walls of the cage in hopes of breaking them. Liquid was filling their lungs, cutting their oxygen supply sharply. They moved their legs back and forth in a fishy motion. Yet for every strike and punch they could muster, the cage’s walls jiggled back from the brunt force.  

Luz turned to Nyarlathotep. “No; I refuse.”  

Before Nyarlathotep’s eyes, Luz flipped the Necronomicon over revealing several fire glyphs on the back. Nyarlathotep’s eyes bulged from their sockets. “Mortal, please reconsider!”  

Luz took another glance at Eda and the others and saw that their movements were screeching to a halt and they sunk towards the ground of the cage. Luz had made her decision. She slammed her hand on the back of the Necronomicon, and it erupted in flames.  

“No!” Nyarlathotep screamed.  

The flames licked the ancient, crisp pages of the Necronomicon and exploded. A shrill hiss filled the air to indicate that the malevolent spirit lurking in the pages of the banned book was dying. Dark green, eldritch smoke crawled out of the embers of the fire and ascended skyward. Luz heard the pages crackle and pop reminding her of the sweet smell of fresh popcorn like the kind you could get at movie theaters. With one final death throe, the Necronomicon crumbled into a heap of ashes.  

Luz looked at Nyarlathotep spitefully. “You have lost, Nyarlathotep.”  

Instead of seeing his hurt, irritated face, Nyarlathotep was once more smiling. He chuckled deeply from the darkest, deepest regions of his stomach. He held his hands over the burning heap that was once the Necronomicon and absorbed a black light that suddenly appeared. He grew larger with his arms and legs becoming more muscular and pronounced. His abdomen became gargantuan as well to accentuate his broad shoulders. No more did he resemble a human, even if a crude mockery of one. He was now a hulking monster with rows upon rows of sharp, jagged teeth.  

A wave of dark power rocked Emperor Belos’ throne room and empire. It shattered the glass cage containing Eda, Lilith and King, and they were washed out on the floor. Eda coughed up the water in a wheeze. “That was close.”  

Before she said anything else, she saw Nyarlathotep tower before them. Alerted, she looked at Luz. “Kid, did you destroy the book or not?”  

“Yes, Eda, I did, but...something came up that I did not anticipate.”  

The ceiling shook and debris started to sprinkle down. From the point of origin, the dark wave of evil magic wreaked havoc through the Isles due to its intensity. Many of the imperial guards were caught in the wave and effortlessly disintegrated. Buildings and houses crumbled from their destroyed foundations compelling the denizens to evacuate from their houses lest they were the casualties. Emperor Belos hid away alongside Kikimora.  

“Sire, what happened!?” Kikimora asked.  

“It is nothing to be concerned about, Kiki,” Emperor Belos replied. He eyed his throne room. “So it did work as planned.”  

Nyarlathotep cackled his deep, monotonous voice shaking the floor. “It has been a thousand years, but it was completely worth it!”  

Luz couldn’t comprehend what had happened. “But..but I destroyed the Necronomicon; you saw it.”  

“I had already overseen the notion that you would refuse to rule by my side, but the good thing about it is that even if you accepted, it wouldn’t have mattered. I would still have reclaimed the powers that I lost. Even if you destroyed the book, that would entail that my powers would be returned to me either way.”  

Luz looked down. “Then it is truly hopeless.”  

Nyarlathotep raised his large scepter. “Before I lay waste to this world, I did promise Boscha that I would humor her little battle with your friend; may as well set the stage for it.”  

“I’ll find a way to stop you,” Luz declared. It was a heat of the moment thing, but she truly did mean it.  

Nyarlathotep chuckled. “After Boscha wins, I guess I’ll honor my deal with Belos and destroy the Earth for good measure.”  

With that, Nyarlathotep transformed into a black wind and swirled out of the throne room cackling his head off.