hello, my hollow Holofernes

The days trapped in the human world are good — Camila Noceda is kind. She patches Hunter's wounds, makes him breakfast for no price more than the dishes he insists on doing, lets him tag along to her job at the veterinary clinic.
But in the night, something scratches at his skin. It wants out. Hunter knows he cannot let it out.
OR
How do you take care of a Trojan horse?

Notes:

whats up gang i finished the owl house last night and wrote 10k words in 2 days, enjoy
Edit: 10/16/22
Let the record show that this fic was written before hunter possession became canon!!!!!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: a second wind coming

Chapter Text

Camila Noceda is a medical professional.

“Mija,” she says like a breath punched out of her. Luz’s smile holds. It doesn’t look structurally sound.

Luz takes one step forward, then another, and then runs into Camila’s arms, and she’s there, solid and present and real. Camila can’t help her tears. They smudge up her glasses as she grips Luz so tight, never wanting to let go.

But she does. She is not an EMT or a surgeon, but triage is even more important for veterinarians — the patients cannot communicate their needs, so only she can determine what hurts most. When her daughter appears hurt and ragged on her doorstep, surrounded by four more kids that look even worse, Camila is not a mother meeting her child’s new friends. She is a doctor.

Injuries. Then food. Then clothes. Then bed. And then, only then, does she plan to ask what happened.

She ushers them inside and orders Vee to portion out stew and rice bowls for seven. She gets the first aid kit herself — there’s one in every room of the house. She can only hope she can help them. At least the wounds don’t look too bad. Luz’s four friends have pointed ears — they likely aren’t human. Camila finds herself unfazed by this.

“I can patch myself up, mama,” Luz says, artificially bright. “I’ve just got a few cuts.”

“No, sit down,” Camila orders. “Cariño, your eyebrow —“

“Take care of them first,” Luz orders back. “They don’t know how to use human first aid. We do.”

There’s something new in her voice. Camila first heard echoes of it when she played make-believe as Azura, but it was never real then. Now, it’s the confidence of a leader that no 14-year-old should be.

Camila picks her battles. She hands Luz some bandages, gauze, and tape.

“Does anyone have any injuries that aren’t surface level?” she asks the assembled children. “Any sprains or broken bones?”

She’s met with an assembly of dazed shaking heads, and she exhales in relief. From what she can see, no one’s hurt too badly. Many of the scrapes could be left to a self-applied bandaid, but she knows the healing power of a tender hand. These kids look like they need someone to care that they’re hurt.

The youngest of them can’t be more than 12. He’s gangly with a recent growth spurt, with dark skin and clothes right out of a Renaissance fair. She motions to him as kindly as she can.

“Sit down,” she tells him, gesturing to the couch.

He does. He winces as she disinfects the cuts on his cheek and the raw patch of shredded skin on the heel of his hand, hissing through his teeth. The scrawny boy keeps a hand on his shoulder. He looks the calmest out of all of them.

“I’m Camila,” Camila says. She makes do with a heavy-duty bandaid for the cheek, but his hand requires some wrapping. “What’s your name?”

“G-Gus. Well, Augustus, actually, but Luz gave me a human nickname. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Noceda.”

“If you’re Luz’s friend, you can call me Camila,” she says with as bright of a smile as she can manage. The kid looks a bit more at ease. That’s good.

Luz comes back, face dotted in bandaids. It’s an achingly familiar sight — Luz has never seen a tree she didn’t want to climb, a wheeled device she didn’t want to bomb down a hill, or a bully she didn’t want to challenge. Camila has always known those bandaids to come with a brilliant grin, not a thousand-yard stare.

Luz pulls aside the girl with the purple hair, applies gauze to her arm, and starts wrapping. It’s tight and professional. Luz is no medic, but she knows the basics from osmosis. She looks tired, dead on her feet. Camila is about to tell her to rest, but then Luz smiles, just a tiny and fragile thing, as she talks encouragingly to her friend to distract her. Camila leaves Luz to her work.

“Who’s next?” Camila asks.

The scrawny kid points wordlessly to the girl with round glasses and a kind, chubby face.

“Hunter,” she says, “didn’t he—“

“I’m fine, Willow,” Hunter tells her. His voice is quiet, strangled. “I’m good at dodging.”

That “he” lingers in Camila’s mind, bouncing around in her skull. She’s used to Luz coming back scraped up by nature. The thought that this could be the fault of a person makes something burn in Camila’s lungs.

Willow isn’t scraped up too badly. No worse than a roller derby fall might leave her, and she seems like the kind of girl who’d play roller derby.

“I’m Willow Park,” Willow says with a smile. “I’ve heard so much about you!”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Willow,” Camila says. She wishes she had heard so much about Willow in return. It feels like missing a step on a staircase — she sent Luz off to camp hoping she’d make friends, and Luz ended up making friends Camila never got to know about until they turned up looking like they’d been dragged through a thorn bush.

Then Hunter is the only one left, sitting ramrod-straight like he’s in the principal’s office. He’s not gangly like Gus — his leanness doesn’t seem to be a body stretched quickly. He’s just scrawny. His cheekbones are gaunt, and one is traversed by a scar. He can’t be older than 17. Camila’s never seen a teenager with a chunk of ear missing.

His only visible injuries are a few scrapes on his forehead, barely bleeding. They don’t even need bandaids (Camila puts some on anyway). But his shirt has slashes cut across it, and chills run down Camilla’s spine.

“Hunter, what tore your shirt?” she asks.

“I’m okay,” Hunter says. He tries to smile. It doesn’t work. He doesn’t seem like he’s breathing deeply enough. “I-it didn’t cut me. Just hit me really hard.”

The rest of the kids aren’t even glancing at the food Vee is setting out. They’re gathered like a hesitant halo, every one touching at least one other.

“Hunter, I need you to take your shirts off and lie down on the couch for me, okay?” Camila says. She’s got no experience calming human patients, but she’s developed the perfect tone for talking to scared cats, and it seems to work.

Just as Camila feared, there’s a nasty bruise in a starburst on Hunter’s ribcage. It blooms in angry red and purple. She can see the shape of his ribs far too clearly. She’s glad for the extra food she made.

There’s a bruise on his shoulder, too, ugly brown and green, but it doesn’t look too bad.

“Your rib is probably cracked,” she tells him. “But you’re going to be okay. You’ll have to rest for a few weeks, and we’ll ice it and get you to a doctor sometime in the next few days.”

“A few weeks,” Hunter repeats, dazed. “R-right! Right. Weeks that we definitely have now!”

Camila chalks it down to shock. No child who wasn’t seriously disoriented would be able to ignore a cracked rib.

Luz brings an ice pack from the freezer, wrapped in a towel. The purple-haired girl follows her like a duckling, hand on her arm. Willow comes to Hunter’s side and holds the ice pack to the bruise.

“It’s time for dinner,” Camila says. “You’re all safe here. I’m sure some good food, a hot shower and a good night’s sleep will work wonders.”

Judging from the expressions that greet her, no one but Willow believes her. Camila is unfazed. The bigger the problem, the more impossible it is to face on an empty and unrested stomach.

They all eat in the living room — Camila insists on Hunter lying down, and no one is willing to leave him alone. They drag in chairs or sit on the floor. Despite the informal, sleepover-like atmosphere, no one talks for a while. Partially because they don’t want to. Partially because they’re all obviously starving. It’s Luz who breaks the silence.

“Mama,” she says, “um, h-have you met my girlfriend?” The girl with the purple hair sits up straight, wipes her mouth clean of stew, and looks nervous. “This is Amity.”

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Camila lived happily with a doppelgänger, not knowing that her true child was alone and imperiled. It isn’t fair that Luz had to get this hurt before having a way to run back to her mother. It isn’t fair that Luz got a girlfriend and Camila wasn’t there. She didn’t get to help Luz pick an outfit to take Amity to a dance, or drive them to cheap burger joints for dates, or meet Amity’s parents with a home-cooked meal.

“Oh, how wonderful!” Camila says. “You’re growing up so fast, mija.”

Amity tilts her head like she’s meeting royalty. “M-mucho gusto. Estoy muy feliz conocerte.”

“Hey, that was pretty good!” Luz says.

Camila laughs a bit — she can’t help it. Of course Luz, trapped in a terrifying demon realm, would start teaching its inhabitants Spanish.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Amity,” Camila says. “I hope you’ve been taking good care of my daughter.”

Hunter finishes his food first. He sets his bowl aside. He does not ask for a second helping. Camila gives one to him anyway, and he begins devouring it so ravenously she tells him to slow down, lest he get indigestion.

After dinner, she can see exhaustion settle over them, soporific. So she takes charge, relieving them of the burden of decisions. Willow is sent to use their shower, as she’s stained with soil. Vee gets everyone sets of clothes, either pajamas or loungewear. Hunter gets the guest bed to himself — Camila would prefer him to be where she can keep an eye on his injuries, but there’s something twitchy about him that makes her think he’d be better off in his own space. Gus takes the couch and preps the pullout for Willow. Vee prefers sleeping outside on rainy nights, which leaves Luz to take her bed — but she gives it up to Amity and asks Camila, almost whispering, if they can both sleep in Camila’s bed that night, and it breaks Camila’s heart that she even felt she had to ask.

As night falls over the house, Camila pushes every concern, every plan, every thought out of her mind and pulls her daughter close. She smells like iron and sweat, like blood and sulfur. Luz needs to sleep, so Camila does not cry. She just looks out the window at the stars refracted in her brimming tears, smeared into blurs of light.

Luz is asleep almost immediately, curled into Camila’s chest just like when she was little. She’s home, and she’s here. Camila wonders if she’d had to fight to come back. If she endured those wounds for the sake of her mother, and a part of her wishes Luz had stayed in the Boiling Isles.

She does not sleep well that night.

Camila expects to be the first person awake the next morning.

Luz is still asleep, out like — well, like a light. Camila leaves soundlessly, but not before tucking the blankets snug around her daughter. She creeps downstairs like a ghost. The kids will need breakfast.

Gus and Willow are still passed out on the couch and pullout. Luz’s clothes are too big on Gus. Her favorite Azura t-shirt and a pair of bright blue sweatpants.

But they’re not alone in the living room. Hunter is awake. Camila’s comfiest sweatshirt hangs around him like a costume, slipping off one shoulder. He’s cross-legged on the floor, staring at his own reflection in the dark television. He doesn’t look like he just woke up. It’s 7 a.m.

“You’re an early riser?” Camila asks.

Hunter jumps like a rabbit, scrambling backward. His eyes lock onto Camila, and he stops, but his body doesn’t relax. Camila winces at his quick breathing.

“Go back to bed, jovencito,” she suggests kindly. “We can talk about what happened over breakfast.” And she’ll get some explanations. “How do bacon and eggs sound?”

“Yeah, uh, sounds great! Bacon sounds great. I totally know what that is,” Hunter says, before scampering back upstairs.

Hunter definitely doesn’t know what bacon is.

Camila starts making the bacon first, filling her whole stovetop with cast-iron. Fourteen slices. Seven eggs. Three pans of hash browns. She doesn’t want to think about her upcoming grocery bills. They got plenty of money from the settlement, but most of it is tied up in Luz’s college fund — Camila sees plenty of overtime in her future, but she also has to stay here. Her daughter’s back, and money shouldn’t matter, but it does. Camila isn’t enough — she’s scraped like butter over too much bread, and these kids need more than she can give.

Hunter stares at his face in the mirror.

There are bright blue bandaids above one eye, covering the scrapes that were barely even bleeding. Mrs. Noceda still bandaged them with a kind smile. It’s not raining anymore, but the window still barely illuminates the room. The sky is overcast, and it’s early.

Mrs. Noceda’s sweatshirt hangs on Hunter like a costume, sliding off one shoulder. It’s cozy and red, too soft for him. But he’s still Hunter in the mirror, gap tooth and eyebags and the marks of Belos’s rage. He touches the scar on his cheek, the slice cut out of his ear. At the time, he’d thought they were accidents — Belos wasn’t himself in that form. Now he wonders.

In the dark black of the mysterious rectangle Mrs. Noceda keeps in her house, his reflection was warped. His eyes were different. Maybe it’s a different kind of mirror — they’ve got plenty of those, back in the Boiling Isles. Mirrors are tricky things.

She told him to go back to bed. He can smell meat from downstairs. He doesn’t go back to bed. He’s never been able to go back to bed after waking up.

Hunter’s been out of his depth so many times he can’t remember when he last felt at ease. New missions, new postings, new subordinates — taking refuge in the human realm shouldn’t be hard. He knows he can handle it.

His hands are shaking, though, and he never aggravates his cracked rib because he can’t breathe deeply enough in the first place. His mind won’t let him.

He leans in closer to the mirror. His trembling fingers prod at his skin. His shoulder itches, and he scratches it. It doesn’t help. The itch is deeper than he can reach. He keeps scratching, scratching, scratching.

It doesn’t help.

Over breakfast, Camila learns everything.

Sometimes, Luz’s voice peters away, but then one of the others jumps in — never Hunter, though. When he does say something, it’s a comment on something already said.

When the story is finished, Camila’s hands feel unattached from her body. She looks at the kids — the witches, the magicians, Luz’s friends, the refugees — and sees them all over again.

Camila doesn’t know much about magic. Vee’s told her stories of the demon realm, but it never felt real. Collectors, emperors, glyphs — that’s not important. What’s important is that Luz is home. Gus, Willow, and Amity have been separated from their family, and Hunter watched his die in front of him. Belos was a horrible man, by the sound of it, and when the kids talk about his “splattering” it’s with awe and fear at the Collector’s power, not grief. But Hunter is silent, staring at his plate.

What’s important is that these kids need a home. They gave Luz a home, back in the demon realm. The people of that fearsome world sheltered her daughter, helping her make friends like Camila never could. Camila will return the favor. She’ll be strong for them, even if her brain is ricocheting around her skull and her tears are pressed back.

“K-King’s over there,” Luz says. “He’s a Titan, he can open a door back!”

Camila can’t quite remember what that means.

“Your parents will come back for you,” she tells Gus, Amity, and Willow. “They’ll take care of things. Until then,” and she makes sure to look at Hunter for the next part, “you’re all welcome to stay here.”

Luz stands suddenly, slamming her hands down on the table. The plates rattle. “We can’t just sit around! They’re in danger over there!”

That’s her Luz — there’s a reckless fire in her that can’t be extinguished, and it makes Camila so scared. She wishes sometimes that Luz were more selfish. That she cared less.

“You’re just kids,” Camila tells her. “This isn’t your fight. I’m sure if the people who care about you on the other side were here, they’d tell you to rest.”

Luz wilts.

“They did,” she mumbles. “Eda tried to send me away so I’d be safe.”

Camila lays a hand over Luz’s. “You need to trust them, mija. You need to trust that people want to protect you.”

“But I want to protect them!” Luz insists. “I have to help!”

Camila knows there’s no way to assuage that desire. All she can hope to do, she knows now, is redirect it.

“Maybe you can,” she says. “This Belos — you said he’s a human, right?”

They nod.

“Was,” Hunter mutters.

“Well, then maybe knowing about the human world could be important.” She pats Luz’s hand. “How about you teach your new friends about life here?”

Luz perks up. “You’re right, mami. And I did promise to show them around one day!”

Camila smiles. Kids are resilient.

Hopefully they’ll give themselves time to rest.

Chapter 2: the creature creeps inside

Summary:

One week later.

Chapter Text

Luz’s wall looks like a conspiracy board. There’s papers with odd glyphs, drawings of inhuman things, strands of red string. Luz stares at the wall, tapping a pencil against her chin.

“Mija?” Camila says tentatively. She knocked, and Luz told her to come in, yet the wall has her full attention. “It’s time for lunch. What are you doing?”

Luz snaps out of her trance. “Oh! Just trying to, um. Nothing!”

Camila’s eyes narrow. She steps inside the room. “Luz, are you trying to find a way back?”

Luz wilts. But she doesn’t seem abashed. “Yeah.”

“You promised!” Camila pleads. “You promised you’d stay here with me.” She steps forward. “I can’t lose you again, Luz.” Tears well in her eyes and throat, thick.

“It’s for the others!” Luz insists. “I have to return them to their home. They don’t belong here.”

“It can wait,” Camila tells her. “It’s dangerous over there, you said so yourself! They’re just kids.”

“Why can’t you trust us?” Luz demands. “Mom, I’ve grown a lot in the Boiling Isles. I’m not the same Luz who went to camp. I can handle myself.”

“I know you can,” Camila says. “But you shouldn’t have to.” She folds her arms. “You’re staying right here.”

“I have to help them! I can’t just stand by, it’s my world too now! I have friends over there, too!”

Camila knows she’s not getting anywhere. She makes an aggrieved noise and throws her hands up in surrender.

“Luz!” a new voice says.

They both turn to the door to see Hunter peering in. His eyes are wide and his mouth is twisted in worry.

“I, um,” Hunter says. “Er. You said you’d show me how human water heaters work today, remember!”

“Water heaters?” Luz repeats, baffled.

“Yeah! Human infrastructure is fascinating!” Hunter marches in and drags a protesting Luz out by the wrist.

Camila sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. What is she going to do with that girl?

She’s not hopeful that Hunter’s going to talk some sense into her. Hunter seemed antsy and scared. Almost like he was afraid something bad would happen if Luz stayed in her room a moment longer — but that would be ridiculous. The kids are safe in this house.

Hunter is back in Belos’s throne room.

Belos’s mask is off. His head is still the golden skull of a deer, with fiery blue eyes burning within. It’s a sculpture of something real, but Hunter doesn’t know what the model was. His flat teeth gnash. Hunter steps back and finds himself on the edge of a cliff. Wind blows from the abyss, ruffling the pristine white of his Golden Guard cloak. He’s taller. He can see eye to eye with Belos. He’s wearing his mask. It’s a golden shell against the world, keeping him from being a child — but he’s not a child now.

Belos lifts a hand and lays it on Hunter’s shoulder, and it sinks through the cloak, gripping his bones. It doesn’t hurt. Hunter doesn’t know where his shoulder ends and Belos’s hand begins. Their bones are touching, tendons weaving over each other.

Something is wrong. Belos is not all there. His eyes are blank. But he’s not rampaging. He’s like a mirage, only real where their flesh is joined.

“Why?” Hunter asks. “Why did you make me?”

He’s read about Grimwalkers. They’re not supposed to be made. They’re hard to make. They use up valuable resources. No one knows quite what they are. And why would Belos keep making things he can’t control?

Belos is silent. His eyes are still blue, and they gaze right into Hunter. He squirms, feeling himself disintegrate away.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he says quietly. “P-please. Tell me why.”

Belos keeps giving him that look. It’s the look that makes Hunter want to please him, even now. It’s the look that fills him with the need to succeed, the look that makes his body twitch, anticipating a new scar.

“A Grimwalker to own,” Belos intones. “I own you.”

“No!” Hunter can’t step back. His heels are on the ledge and he can’t extricate Belos’s hand from his shoulders. “N-no, you don’t. Not anymore. You’re dead!”

“You are nothing,” Belos intones. “A Grimwalker is nothing but emptiness. A Grimwalker is an abomination of wild magic. A Grimwalker is meant only to serve, and to be destroyed upon betrayal.”

The hand inside Hunter’s shoulder tightens its grip. It hurts.

“A Grimwalker is useful,” Belos intones, his voice so flat, and Hunter throws himself off the cliff, pulling Belos down with him. As they fall, Hunter’s shoulder sucks Belos in, and he feels something crawling beneath his skin.

He wakes up, gasping so hard he cries out in pain, covered in sweat. His right arm is shaking so badly it’s rumpling the sheets he’s gripping.

The crawling is there for a few seconds, and then it’s gone. He scratches his shoulder. It’s already rendered red and raw from his nails, with green blooming beneath when he presses.

Hunter is good at washing dishes.

He insists on helping with the dishes after every meal, no matter how much Camila tells him to rest. He takes the pots while Camila loads the dishwasher — he’s a nice kid, but she doesn’t trust him with human machines yet. Sometimes he winces a little bit, but Camila doesn’t order him back to bed. Given that she’s trying to keep these kids from going back to some apocalyptic war, she has to pick her battles. Besides, the magical plants Willow’s been growing are working wonders — in a week, his rib has gone through three week’s worth of recovery. She’s thankful for that. After learning about the bile sacs, she doesn’t think he can go to a human doctor.

Usually, Hunter wears gloves. He only takes them off to do the dishes. His palms both bear what look like old chemical burn scars.

He was raised by the Emperor. Camila doesn’t think Belos was a very good guardian.

When they’re done, the pots are gleaming. There are none of the little spots that Luz would leave, not out of laziness but distractability.

The kids are adjusting. Willow’s got a part-time job down at the greenhouse, and she seems delighted to learn about human plants. Gus is shadowing Vee at human school. Luz is out showing Amity the human library. Camila’s working the evening today, so it’s just her and Hunter.

“Thank you for the help, Hunter,” Camila says. “I don’t think these pots have ever been so clean.” She sighs, wipes her brow. “I need to kick back and watch some TV. Would you like to join me?”

“I’ll make some tea,” Hunter says.

Camila doesn’t contradict him, doesn’t insist that she’ll make it. When Hunter doesn’t have anything to do or he’s told to not help, he gets an antsy look that Camila doesn’t like.

She sits on the couch and starts scrolling through Netflix for a good documentary. She likes documentaries, and they’re a good way to teach Hunter about the wonders of the human world. She’s used to this world, but showing it off to some kids who are in wonder at everything ignites her own sense of beauty.

Then there’s a crash from the kitchen.

“Hunter?” she calls, standing. “Is everything all right?”

She walks into the kitchen and finds Hunter kneeling on the kitchen floor, shoveling the shattered remains of a ceramic mug into his hands with desperation. One of the shards nicks his finger. He doesn’t react.

Camila rushes to him, crouching down beside him. “Oh, baby, no. Let’s get a broom, okay?”

She reaches out to stay his hands. His body goes tense — he doesn’t flinch from her touch, but he braces himself. Camila freezes.

She’s no psychologist, but she knows animals. She’s had plenty of patients injured by the very owners bringing them in, who winced and snapped out of fear. She knows what happens to a creature that can’t trust human hands, how they’ll react when one reaches for them.

She doesn’t think Belos was a very good guardian.

“I’m, I’m sorry,” he stammers. “I’ll repair it, or I’ll get you a new one, I promise. Just please…”

He doesn’t say what he’s asking for, but Camila knows.

“Put down the shards, Hunter.”

He does, letting them clink against the floor. Camila takes his hands. They’re broad, but the fingers are a bit too thin. They’re both shaking, one more than the other. She stands, pulling him up with him, and guides him to the couch. He stares at his hands, at the burns. There’s a bandaid left on the coffee table from the first night. Camila grabs it.

“Hunter,” she says softly, wrapping the bandaid over Hunter’s fingertip, “it’s okay. I’m not angry. It’s just a mug.” She takes a blanket and drapes it around his shoulders. “And even if I was angry, you wouldn’t have to be afraid.”

Hunter collapses in on himself, shoulders hunching.

“He wasn’t well,” he says, hushed, his tone sounding like he thinks he has to explain himself. “I don’t think he was a person anymore, at the end. I tried to help him. I did everything I could.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “But he couldn’t always control what he did when he…”

“That’s no excuse,” Camila tells him. “He never should have hurt you.”

“Sometimes it was for my own good,” Hunter says, and wow, that’s a lot to unpack.

Camila takes a few moments to choose her words. Hunter is just a kid, but he doesn’t see himself that way. He doesn’t trust adults to know what’s best anymore unless there’s another reason to listen to them, and Camila can’t blame him. It’s probably a good thing.

“I’m a veterinarian,” she says. “I take care of hurt animals. Sometimes I have to hurt them to heal them, like rebreaking a bone to reset it. I know what it’s like to hurt someone for their own good. So I can tell you that’s not what he did.”

Hunter draws the blankets around himself.

“I know,” he tells her. “I know he hurt me. I know he lied to me. I know he —“ he cuts himself off. “He tried to kill everyone on the Boiling Isles.” He sniffles. “So why did it hurt to watch him die?”

Camila pulls him into a hug. She can do nothing else. Hunter goes limp like he’s been sedated.

“It’s okay,” she says. “No one gets to tell you the right way to grieve.” She squeezes him tighter. “And no one gets to hurt you. Not here.”

He learns how to make human food. How to fry fajita vegetables, what kind of cheeses go best with what meat. It’s delicious. Amity, Willow and Gus eat human food with hesitation, and it’s clear on their faces that they miss their home cuisine very badly. But Hunter feels as though his taste buds have been wandering his whole life, and now they’re finally home.

Mrs. Noceda always insists that he take seconds. He finds himself cleaning his plate every time. She makes him drink milk, too, coming from something called a “cow.” She says it’ll make him grow taller. Hunter likes the idea. It’ll make people take him more seriously.

His rib still aches, but it’s definitely not the worst injury he’s ever had. It only hurts when he breathes too hard — he tried to go out for a run, but found himself wheezing in pain two blocks later. Willow gave him an earful after that.

Camila’s house is getting greener.

It starts off slowly, just a few pots here and there, blooming bright green. Then some flowers springing up from the soil around her porch. But as Willow learns more and more about human plants, constantly stopping by the little lending library for botany books and salvaging old pots from the garden center trash, the house and yard explode with floral life.

She doesn’t mind. Some of the plants are from the Boiling Isles, and they can snap and sting if you get too close — but just a single leaf can relieve pain or close a cut or make your voice high like helium. And Willow grows Earth plants too, peppers and potatoes and strawberries, blossoming and fruiting heedless of season. It saves Camila a lot on groceries.

“Try these!” she says, rushing into the living room where Camila is explaining checkers to a rapt and concentrated Hunter.

She gives them each a cherry tomato. Camila pops it into her mouth, and it’s a little ray of sunshine over her tongue.

“Delicious! Willow, how incredible!”

“It’s amazing,” Hunter says, awestruck. “What is it?”

“No idea!” Willow says cheerily. “Just some seeds my boss gave me.”

“They’re cherry tomatoes,” Camila tells her. “Little bundles of sunshine!”

“Oh, makes sense for Willow to grow them, then.” Hunter says. He immediately scrunches his face up, turning bright red. “I mean, it makes sense for any plant witch to grow a delicious tasting vegetable!”

Camila laughs fondly. Whatever warrior Hunter was back in the Boiling Isles, he’s still just a teenage boy.

Hunter’s out on the back porch, bare hands covered in soil as he frowns in determination at a pot. Camila watches him from the open kitchen window. He’s packing the pot full of soil. Then he puts some seeds in it. He covers them with care with loose soil, then pours a cup of water in.

“What are you planting?” Camila asks.

“Flowers,” Hunter says. “I figure we’ll be here for a bit.” He turns away from Camila, hiding his face from her. “Maybe Willow will like them.”

“I know she will,” Camila says.

Hunter stares at himself in the mirror.

He’s started doing it every morning. He can’t help it. There’s something more to see. Something he’s missing.

He peels back his eyelids. Bares his teeth. Turns his head, checking as much of it as he can. It’s him. It’s just him.

But when the documentaries turn off and the TV is dark, he could swear he sees antlers behind him.

“I own you,” Belos says — his voice is always echoing, always trying to lay a hand on the wheel, but that’s nothing new. Fingernails dig into his shoulder.

Hunter tenses, and they go away. They aren’t real. Belos is dead.

Camila is trying her best to understand magic. It’s clear that the Boiling Isles isn’t a standard fantasy world, and just when she thinks she’s got the picture Gus will casually mention something like a clock with teeth. Sometimes it’s more like sci-fi — their crystal balls are televisions!

Over fajitas, she asks if cloning is real in the Boiling Isles.

“Cloning?” Gus repeats.

“Making a copy of someone,” Camila says. “We’ve figured out how to do it, but only with animals.”

Maybe it’s a matter of pride — the witches are impressed enough by the natural beauty of Earth, but it makes her even happier when they’re astounded by human accomplishment. Like she’s saying “see what we can do without magic! See, Luz, the miracles you can see without ever leaving this world!”

“I’ve never heard of anyone actually doing that,” Gus said. “There are stories, I guess.”

“Grimwalkers,” Amity says with authority.

“That sounds spooky,” Willow says with a shudder. “Tell me more!”

Amity leans in over the table, lighting up at the opportunity to explain something.

“Okay, I guess I should start with abominations,” she says. “You all know the basic theory — a specially brewed or summoned material that can be easily imbued with a form and basic instructions. Even the best ones, like the ones my dad makes, could never pass for sentient.”

Abominations give Camila the heeby-jeebies, but they’re very helpful for carrying heavy things.

“So you think Grimwalkers are abominations?” Hunter asks. He’s staring at his hands again.

“You’ve got it backwards,” Amity tells him. “See, this is how abomination magic got started. Witches found out how to cheaply imitate a Grimwalker. But a Grimwalker has a soul. No one knows how to make them anymore, but they took on the appearance of the creature that lent their bones to the spell.” She waggles her fingers like she’s telling a ghost story. “Underneath all that, who knows what they were like on the inside? How they act? How they think? But looking at them, you’d never be able to tell they weren’t a person!”

Camila shudders.

“But they are!” Luz insists angrily. “I mean, they have a soul, right?”

Amity shrugs. “The records are really sparse. I guess they could be people, but the book I read gathering all the old legends says, since they’re creatures made of magic, their true form wouldn’t be like any witch or demon. Or human.”

“Well, I bet that book is full of baloney!” Luz proclaims.

Amity crosses her arms with a little pout. “It was from the Blight library! We’d never keep a book that wasn’t accurate!”

“Well, how would you know?” Gus says in a curious tone. “I mean, it’s not like there are any Grimwalkers left.”

“But why not?” Willow asks. “If that’s how abomination magic got started, why doesn’t the Abomination Coven still make them?”

“Well, there are ethical implications!” Gus says. “If they have souls, that’s not just making a mindless servant. That’s creating new life!”

“Ethical implications? Like that’s ever stopped the coven,” Amity scoffs. “I bet they just forgot how. Otherwise they’d be making Grimwalkers for couples who couldn’t have kids — for a price.”

“Or replicating dead loved ones,” Willow said with a gasp. “If you need their bones—“

Hunter leaves the table, his plate unfinished. He never leaves food on his plate. Luz quickly follows him. Camila changes the subject away from Grimwalkers.

Luz finds him out on the porch, knees drawn up to his chest. Hunter doesn’t look at her, but he recognizes her footfalls.

“Hey,” she says softly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let them say those things.”

“I knew all of that already,” Hunter tells her. “I know more about Grimwalkers than she does. One book in the Blight library isn’t going to compare to what I could read in the Emperor’s castle.”He presses his forehead against his knees. “It-it doesn’t matter, right? I’m just Hunter. Just Hunter. A Grimwalker’s just a person someone made instead of hatched.” His voice spirals higher and higher. He knows he can’t fool her.

Luz sits down beside him. “Yeah. You’re right.” She puts an arm around his shoulder. Her hand rests over Belos’s. “You’re just Hunter.”

“You jerk, Hunter!” Luz yells, her eyes glued to the screen. “That’s the third time you’ve teal shelled me! Third time!”

“Eat my dust, Luz!” Hunter cackles.

He grins, wild and competitive.

“I am the god of this track,” Hunter proclaims. “I am a warrior of pure speed — Willow, hey, you traitor!”

Willow snickers as she speeds past Hunter’s crimson shell-dazed cart. Camila chuckles and sips her evening tea.

“I’m still stuck at tenth,” Gus says morosely.

“Don’t worry,” Vee says encouragingly, leaning over the back of the couch, “you’ll get it.”

Willow wins, and Hunter just edges Luz out for second — she whacks his arm, he puts her in a headlock, she tackles him into the couch.

“Yes!” Willow cheers. “Amity, you’re next!”

Amity, who had proclaimed that she’d beat the winner, looks a bit nervous.

“Ha!” Hunter crows, putting Luz in some kind of martial arts pin. “I win.”

“If I had my magic —“

“But you don’t.” Hunter sticks his tongue out at her — Camila knows exactly where he got that from.

When she was little, Luz told Camila once that she wished she had an older sibling, someone to look out for her. Luz herself was a miracle child, a total surprise, and the best one of Camila’s life. But she was always lonely. She’s not lonely anymore.

Hunter rubs his knuckles against Luz’s head. Luz turns her head and licks his hand. He cries out “ew!” and leaps back.

“You did it to me,” Luz declares, “when we first met. Now I have my revenge!”

Hunter is awoken by a slap to the face.

He immediately snaps to attention, putting up his fists, dropping the odd orb of wood in his hands. He swings, but he meets only something soft and slimy, and his assailant yells his name —

Hunter blinks. “Amity?”

Amity does not look pleased. “What the hell were you doing?”

He’s in trouble. He did something wrong, and he’s in trouble. “Sleeping! Sleeping, I swear, I don’t know what’s going on!”

Amity sends some abomination sludge to turn the light on. Hunter looks at his feet and sees what he was holding — Luz’s palisman egg. Why did he have that?

Flapjack lands on his shoulder, twittering in worry, asking if Hunter is okay now. Hunter looks around and realizes he’s in Luz’s room. Luz is fast asleep — she sleeps like the dead. There’s a hollow in the blankets where Amity was.

Luz has a mirror, and he glances at it. Hunter’s reflection is Hunter. It looks wrong.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” Hunter says, dazed. “Amity, what happened?”

“I woke up to you,” she brandishes a finger, “stealing Luz’s palisman! And I thought you had a good reason, but then you started trying to crack it open! It’s an egg, Hunter, it’ll crack when it’s ready!”

Hunter grabs his right arm, grabs his right shoulder. It feels heavy.

“No,” he insists. “No, I wouldn’t do that!”

Amity sighs, smoothing down her messy hair, takes a deep breath. “I believe you.”

Hunter feels like he just missed a step on a staircase. “What?”

“I know how much you care about palismen,” Amity says. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. But that’s definitely what it looked like.”

She crouches down to pick up the egg. When she stands again, she’s cradling it protectively.

“You must have been sleepwalking. What were you dreaming about?”

“I don’t remember,” Hunter says. He does remember. He dreamed of the night Belos’s rage lashed through his skin. Six years since then, but the memory is still etched into his brain. Belos was starving that night.

But the dream was different. This time, it was Hunter who was a frenzied animal, gashing open the cheek of a scared blond child.

Chapter 3: my skin peels off like paint

Summary:

In some ways, Hunter belongs in the Human Realm. In many ways, he can't.

Chapter Text

“Can I come?”

Camila looks at Hunter in surprise, pausing in packing her work bag. “You mean to work?”

Hunter nods eagerly. “You heal animals, right?”

“All right,” Camila says, “come along. I’ll show you what we do, but you might have to help out.”

Hunter nods even more eagerly. “Perfect!”

He’s a chatterbox on the ride over, and Camila’s more than happy to answer all his questions about what she does — it’s not every day someone is this enthusiastic about animal medicine. Camila remembers the story Willow told her, how Hunter betrayed the Emerald Entrails and then saved them and their palismen. How he kept a little cardinal safe in the castle of a palisman-eater. Hunter’s eyes sparkle, and Camila knows he’ll make an excellent assistant.

She’s right. He winces at the hurt animals that come in, but he doesn’t get squeamish. He learns the names of her instruments quickly and hands them to her when she asks. A very cross cat comes in needing shots, and Camila asks Hunter to keep it still — he doesn’t have to restrain it, because the kitty ends up purring in his lap, barely reacting to the injections. Until the last shot. It yowls, and Hunter has to wrangle it back into the cage.

“We hurt it,” he says. He looks like a proper veterinarian in his borrowed scrubs and satisfied smile. “But now it won’t get sick.”

On the ride back home, they get ice cream, and Hunter can’t stop talking about how amazing all Earth’s animals are. There’s a zoo nearby that has free admission for youths on weekends. Camila tells him about it, and he resolves to go.

Their route takes them past the Wittebane statues. Hunter’s words trail off.

“Can we stop here?” he asks.

They park, and Hunter approaches the sculpted brothers as if in a trance. Philip and Caleb gaze into the distance. Camila glares at them, now that she knows what Philip became. Hunter’s eyes land on the sign beneath the statues that bears the Gravesfield city crest.

“Caleb looks a bit like you,” Camila idly notes. “You have the same nose.”

“Yeah,” Hunter croaks. “We do.”

He gazes up at the statues, and the hood of his hoodie falls back, revealing his pointed ears. A hand drifts to his face. He’s facing away from Camila, so she can’t see his expression. He laughs, helpless and small, and his shoulders shake.

“I guess he was right,” Hunter says.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Hunter turns. “Let’s head back”

Caleb Wittebane. That’s who he’s a copy of.

Hunter sits on his bed. He really is Belos’s nephew, sort of. The thought doesn’t comfort him.

He wonders about the other Grimwalkers. They all betrayed Belos. Were they all the same? No, because Darius said the last one was a great witch, and Hunter is barely a witch at all.

His shoulder hurts, a sharp ache that runs down his whole arm. He takes off his shirt. The whole limb is discolored, but not from injury — he’s been beaten up enough to know. It’s magic. Magic he hasn’t seen before. Maybe it’s not just him — the odd discolored magic spirals up the same arm that bears his Emperor’s Coven sigil. Maybe on the other side, everyone’s arms are hurting.

He grips his arm, and it hurts in response. He can’t tell Mrs. Noceda. He can tell she still thinks magic is dangerous, and if she thinks he’s dangerous, he’ll have to leave. He doesn’t want to leave, because he’s selfish and stupid and can’t remember the last time an adult held him like they didn’t want anything from him.

He walks to the mirror and stares at himself in it. His nose, his jawline, his mouth — they aren’t his, they’re Caleb’s. It’s all Caleb except his irises, and even those aren’t his own. They brand him as a copy.

Philip killed Caleb. Hunter knows that the same way he always knows when it’s about to rain — it’s somewhere deeper than logic, than knowledge. Philip killed Caleb, and then he killed who knows how many more Calebs, and then the last Caleb watched him die.

Belos is dead. Belos can’t hurt him. Even if Belos was alive, the door between worlds is gone.

He goes to bed. He locks the door beforehand and shoves the dresser in front of it. He tells Flapjack to go sleep in Luz’s room.

His hand twitches. Hunter ignores it. He has to ignore it. He’s safe here. He’s safe here. He’s safe here.

He has a different dream this time.

In the other dreams, he is Hunter, past, present and future.

He isn’t anymore.

He stands in the forest, and his antlers brush the treetops. He spreads his wings and a cry escapes his throat. He moves like a human and it’s wrong, all wrong, he stumbles over skin barely stretched over bone. Blood, there’s the smell of blood all around him — his quarry, his prey, his friends, the things that sing all around him.

Hands that flicker between person and not wrap around the tree trunks, spindly and spidery. He opens his mouth to call for help and can only scream, animal and terrified, and the birds all take flight as if fearing they’ll be offerings to a vengeful god. He is meat and wood.

It’s wrong. His body is wrong. He looks in the mirror of a lake, and he sees himself, and nothing is wrong with his reflection.

Showers in the human realm are different. There’s no gauge to keep a careful eye on lest it slip over to boiling, no shower gnome trying to eat his feet. There’s just the hiss of hot water and the fogging glass. Back in the Coven, Hunter got exactly one minute to shower. Mrs. Noceda hasn’t said if there’s a time limit here, so he stares blankly at the drain.

His hair’s gotten soft. Humans have made wonderful innovations in shower products. The rest of him is softer, too — he’s eaten more in the past week and a half than he normally does in a month.

His hand tightens around his arm. He hasn’t been training or exercising. He’s never been on leave this long, and he doesn’t know what to do with all this energy. He’s supposed to be a soldier, but he doesn’t want to go back to that life. He wants to stay here, with hot showers and soft beds.

There are scars dotted all over his body. Some mark victories, some mark failures. He’s starting to get the sense that a human teenager would find them unusual. And that a human adult would find them worrying.

It’s not like he was a victim. Every scar is from some kind of fight. Sometimes, that fight was his battle to find a cure for his uncle. He was just a casualty, an externality. It didn’t matter to Belos that he was carelessly hurt, so it didn’t matter to Hunter.

It would matter to Mrs. Noceda, even if it didn’t make any sense. Maybe that’s enough, for it to matter to someone. Maybe he can keep his caring safe with someone else.

“Hey, um, Hunter? Can I come in?”

Hunter looks up from his book on human electrical systems — they’re absolutely fascinating — to see Gus peering around his door, looking worried. That makes Hunter worried.

“Yeah, go ahead,” he says.

Gus creeps in, closing and locking the door behind him. He sits down beside Hunter, limbs stiff. He wants to say something.

“So,” he begins, “when we fought Belos…I used my illusion magic. The spell you saw — the one that makes you see your memories.”

Hunter stiffens.

“And…I saw you,” Gus continues. “Or, well, not you. He was an adult, and he didn’t have a scar, and his eyes were different, but…it was definitely you. Back when Belos was young. And I saw him kill you.”

He looks up at Hunter, eyes wide.

“I don’t know what those memories mean,” he says. Hunter thinks he’s lying. Gus knows. Maybe he won’t let himself realize, but he knows. “Hunter…do you know what they mean?”

Hunter draws his knees up to his chest, letting the book fall to the floor. He stares at the beige carpet.

“You’re a smart kid, Gus.” he says. “Figure it out.”

“Hunter, are you a —“

“I said figure it out yourself!” Hunter snaps.

“Okay,” Gus says softly, unintimidated. He slips out of the room.

There’s a thump thump thump coming from down the hall, and Camila wakes up afraid.

A burglar wouldn’t be so loud — it sounds like a car hitting a deer, over and over and over. Camila shoots out of bed, grabbing a lamp to brandish as a weapon. She throws the door open. Now that she’s in the hallway, she can hear that the thumping is coming from behind the door of the guest room. Where Hunter is. Alone.

Luz’s door opens, and Amity emerges, rubbing her eyes blearily.

“Amity, get back in the room,” Camila orders. “Something’s wrong. Hunter!”

Hunter doesn’t reply. Amity doesn’t listen. She steps ahead of Camila, drawing a wondrous glowing circle in the air. An abomination rises to her side, and Camila winces even though she knows Amity won’t leave any slime on the carpet.

“I grew up in the Boiling Isles, Camila,” she says. “I can handle anything the human world can throw at me.”

They stop in front of the shaking door. It locks from the inside — whatever’s in there, it’s not smart enough to even undo a lock.

Two sets of footsteps start up the stairs. Luz, bless her, is still asleep. Camila places her hand on the rattling doorknob, testing it. The door is locked.

“Hunter!” Gus calls, running up to the door. “Hunter, are you in there?”

“Hunter!” Willow yells.

Flapjack flies from Luz’s room — why was he in there? He lands on Willow’s shoulder, twittering and whistling frantically. The pounding stops. Everyone holds their breath.

Something heavy gets moved behind the door. It unlocks. The doorknob turns. The door opens.

Hunter is there. He’s not wearing a shirt. The whole right side of his body is bruised. He reaches out a hand. He’s asleep. There’s no way he’s asleep, not with those bruises, not if he’s been throwing himself against the door with a cracked rib.

He opens his eyes. They’re blank. They’re blue. He tilts his head to the side, slowly and deliberately. Like an owl, almost.

Everyone takes a step back. Hunter needs to go to the doctor. His arm doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look like any bruise Camila’s ever seen. It’s winding and rotten and green. He stumbles forward.

“He’s not awake,” Gus says. “We need to wake him up, now.”

“Can’t one of you wake him up?” Camila asks anxiously. “With magic?”

Willow draws a circle in the air and a flower springs forth. It blooms beneath Hunter’s nose, releasing its pollen. Hunter gasps, his whole body jolting. His knees are unsteady, and everyone rushes forward to catch him in a tangle of limbs as he collapses.

“What happened?” he mumbles. He tries to stand on his own feet. He fails.

“Yeah, we were kinda hoping you could answer that,” Gus says.

“Your arm,” Camila says. “It looks bad. We need to get you to a doctor.”

Hunter jerks away from her, eyes wide and glinting blue in the moonlight. “N-no! I mean, they won’t…it’s not an injury they’ll know how to fix.”

“We need to do something! That’s no normal bruise,” Camila insists.

Hunter draws his arm protectively to his chest. He’s staring into the middle distance but doesn’t seem to see anything there. His breath is uneven.

“Hey, hey, do your breathing, buddy,” Gus says soothingly. He counts on his fingers, and Hunter breathes with him. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out.

“You’re safe, Hunter,” Camila tells him. “We’ll find out what happened.”

Hunter looks at Camila. His eyes are wide, scared.

“I know what happened,” he says. He gulps. “Just a bad dream.” Camila gets goosebumps up her arms. Hunter attempts a smile, but it looks even more broken than his grimace. “I’m okay. No one gets to hurt me here, right?”

Hunter can’t do abomination magic, but he knows about it. He’s studied every kind of magic, poring obsessively over textbooks and scrolls, hoping that the next thing he reads about will have insight into a cure for Belos. He knows that an abomination, if given an order, will not rest until the order is completed. Because they don’t have souls, all they have are their instructions. They are compelled to bring their master their quarry, even if they must destroy their bodies in the process.

“Bring me palismen,” Belos says. Hunter’s arm twitches. It’s always twitching. The discoloration is spreading across his shoulder blades. His right hand is becoming yellow-gold beneath his glove, his burn scars turning gilded. There’s a patch of skin on his back that isn’t skin anymore. He refuses to let Mrs. Noceda inspect the damage.

He has to leave.

He’s got some money from a few shifts at the Burger Queen — a vexatious endeavor, but it gave him what he needed. He trades those arcane papers for a backpack, some food, a sleeping bag. A sleeping bag will restrain his limbs as he sleeps. He packs some of Mrs. Noceda’s hot chocolate and the polo shirt Amity got for him. It’s black with red piping. She says it brings out his eyes.

One more night, he tells himself. One more night in a soft bed, and then he’ll go far, far away from here.

It’s a mistake. When he wakes up, he has just enough presence of mind to leap from the window and run into the woods far away from the palismen before consciousness is ripped from him by a cruel hand.

Chapter 4: rip my ribcage open and devour what's truly yours

Chapter Text

Camila isn’t sleeping well. She wakes up almost immediately when she hears screaming from the forest.

It’s not a human, thankfully. It sounds like an animal is wounded out there, but it’s not a cry she recognizes. Whatever it is, it’s in horrible distress.

She gets her shoes on, grabs her work bag, pounds on Luz’s door. Amity opens it.

“What is that noise?” Amity asks.

“A hurt animal,” Camila says. “I’m going out to treat it. Can you tell Luz to get ready and follow the noise to come help me?”

Amity salutes, and Camila rushes out the door. It doesn’t take long to find the animal.

It’s not an animal.

Luz runs through the forest, three witches behind her. Hunter didn’t answer her pounding at his locked door, and she didn’t have time to pick the lock. Amity sent an abomination slithering through the keyhole. It reported the room empty.

She reassures herself that Hunter probably heard the sound too. Hunter’s got a soft spot for animals, and he’s been helping her mom at the clinic. He probably just wanted to help. He probably made a dramatic exit through the window like the dramatic fantasy hero he thinks he is.

Tears prick at her eyes, because her mom has a head start rushing towards something making a noise that sounds like the screeching of the palisman souls within Belos’s mind. She hopes Hunter ran after her. He can protect her — but he doesn’t have his staff. Flapjack is flying alongside her, cheeping in worry.

They crash through the trees and see Camila stepping back in fear.

It’s Belos, Luz thinks for a moment, wild and terrified, it’s Belos, and she’s there with nothing but a veterinary first aid kit, nothing to draw glyphs on and they’d disintegrate anyway. But now she sees that it isn’t. Belos’s corrupted form, the palisman soul creature — they were twisted echoes of something. Of this.

It’s golden over most its body, antlers stretching toward the sky from its regal deer-like head, body long and awesome in the most traditional, ancient sense — something spreads like mold over its right side, twisting and writhing, rotting from the inside out, and as Luz watches, a blue eye opens in its right arm, glowing against the rough-bark trees. The creature spreads its wings. They’re tattered, unused, feathers shining like metal in the moonlight. It’s hard to make out details in the dark, with stars only barely peeking between the treetops.

It’s in pain, corrupted, dangerous. But if not for that, it would be beautiful. Majestic.

It’s hard to appreciate that, though. In the Boiling Isles, Luz forgot what it was like to be afraid of the dark. Surrounded by the supernatural with glyphs at her side, every monster was just a natural escalation.

But here, in the woods of Connecticut, to see a great beast with the head of a deer makes something within Luz remember what it is to be prey.

“What is that?” Gus asks, scared. “Is that…”

“Camila, get back!” Willow cries out. “Where’s Hunter? Is he with you?”

She gets a shaken head in response, and Luz feels her stomach turn to lead.

“I’ve seen drawings in my book,” Amity says, hushed. “That’s a Grimwalker. Why is there a Grimwalker here?”

A hand, entirely human but for its size, grips the forest floor. The Grimwalker wails and spasms as though both parts of itself want to go somewhere different, as though it’s trying to tear itself apart. Flapjack screeches from Luz’s shoulder.

“We need to take it down,” Willow says. Her eyes disappear behind her green-glowing glasses. “What if that thing hurt Hunter?”

“No,” Luz says, hollow and hushed. “That is Hunter.”

He’s in training.

It’s his first time, but he remembers this — the heft of the spear in his hands, the rough canvas of the sparring uniform. The boots are too big, because he’s nine years old and they don’t make them in his size.

“Begin.”

His first time, he loses. And the second. And the third. And it’s sunset, his feet are wet with popped-blister blood. His arms shake, but he stands.

“Begin.”

Feint, stab, take your opponent’s spear against yours. Twist and make the feet dance. The spear falls to the floor. He points his own weapon at his opponent, metal tickling throat.

“Passable.”

He falls to his knees, euphoric. He can finally rest. His whole body shakes violently.

“Stand up. Again.”

He stands.

Belos roars, and he stands still.

“Uncle,” he pleads, voice small. “Uncle, it’s me, it’s —“

Something rotten shoots through the air, and he stands still, and his cheek bursts open with pain. He cries out, grabbing at his face, and hot blood runs through his fingers like missed opportunities. Belos hisses. He steps back, afraid.

“Do not run from me, boy!” Belos snarls.

He freezes. He steps forward again.

The next time, he runs towards Belos. The last of the Wittebanes meet in the throne room, and he talks in soothing tones. Belos stills, Belos quivers, and he reaches out to his heart — Belos meets his touch, and he screams, because whatever that part of him is made of it doesn’t take kindly to skin.

Back, forth or still — it doesn’t matter. Belos is a shoal without a lighthouse, and storms turn him to an indiscriminate weapon.

He leans to the side, but not enough. He avoids a matching scar, but his ear is bandaged for weeks. It doesn’t fully heal — he’s got missions to go on, no time for healers to treat something that isn’t going to stop him from fighting.

The thing that Luz called Hunter struggles on the forest floor, screaming in rage and pain. Willow’s thornless vines and Amity’s abominations lash him to the ground, and Gus tries to find an illusion that will calm him down. Camilla approaches him — the molded arm strains against his bindings as if trying to claw at her, while the golden bulk of him cringes away.

“Hunter?” Camila asks softly. “Can you hear me, jovencito?”

The creature keens and wails. Camila doesn’t want to believe that this is the snarky, scrawny boy who has a way with cats and loves bacon. But Luz seems to know something she doesn’t. Something her friends didn’t. Camila trusts her.

“Mom, be careful!” Luz yells. “He might bite you!”

“I’m a veterinarian, ,” Camila says, throwing her daughter a comforting smile over her shoulder. “I’m very good at not letting my patients bite me.”

His animal mouth snaps with teeth that are far too human. About a quarter of the face is golden, and Camila lays a careful hand on it. She feels soft feathers beneath her palm.

She can tell he’s in pain. The winding corruption is hurting him, but it’s magic, and Camila’s just a useless human.

“I don’t know what to do,” Camila confesses. “Whatever you’ve been through…I don’t know how I can make it right. All I can do is be here. Can I do that? Can I be here with you?”

Hunter sobs. Beneath the two voices of his cries, Camila hears a scared boy clear as day. He spasms one last time, then goes limp against the vines and sludge, letting his head rest heavy in Camila’s arms as he shivers. The molded arm still writhes.

“That corruption looks like Belos,” Luz says.

So this is the kind of thing they faced fearlessly? This is what her children had to deal with?

“Some of Belos must have latched onto him,” Amity replies. “Or maybe…maybe it was always there.”

“Then we have to trust Hunter,” Gus says. “He’s still in there. He can fight Belos off.”

“We could help!” Luz insists. “If we could get into his mind —“

“Do you know that spell?” Amity demands. “Because I sure don’t!”

“Me either,” Gus says.

“I don’t, either,” Willow says. “It’s all up to Hunter now.”

“Will he be all right?” Camila asks anxiously.

Amity’s eyes brim with tears. “M-maybe. Maybe this is the kind of magical infection that can be shaken off…” she swallows. “Or maybe all he can do is contain it.”

“The Titan has big plans for you.”

The Day of Unity has passed. Everyone is happy. The world is at peace. Wild magic has been gone for years. He’s as tall as his uncle now. People cheer for him even without his burnished mask, and the sigil on his cream-white cloak glows with his pride.

“You have everything you sought, Uncle,” he says. “What more could the Titan possibly plan, except for what I’ve already done to aid you?”

Belos lays a hand on his shoulder. “Only one more thing,” he says. “I am so very proud of you.”

Hunter turns to face him. Belos smiles benevolently. Hunter feels like he’s going to vomit. This is wrong.

“Where are my friends?” he asks. “Where’s Flapjack?”

The hand on Hunter’s shoulder melts through the cloak, gripping the diseased shoulder beneath, grasping at the muscle fibers, at the neurons, at the blood, and pain echoes down the discolored arm.

“Whatever do you mean?” Belos asks.

“No,” Hunter insists. “N-no, this isn’t real! You died! I watched you die!”

“Did you?”

Everything is black.

Hunter looks down at his hands, and they aren’t there. He looks up, and Belos is there, ringed in gold. Like he was back in Belos’s mind, but a different color.

“What’s going on?” Hunter demands. “How—why are you here? What are you doing to me?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Belos says. Something is wrong with him, but the reverse of normal — instead of his presence being oppressive, it’s wispy and light. Like something is missing. Like all of him is stretched thin. He steps forward. “I made you. It is my right to unmake you. To unravel and reknit you.”

If Hunter had breath, he’d be hyperventilating. He’s going to die.

“I made you. I own you,” Belos intones like a recording.

Hunter has his body again as invisible tendrils pierce it like sewing needles — he screams, he cries, but it’s no use, he’s held still like a great-toothed moth to a corkboard, pinned to his own mind. To Belos’s mind — were they ever different?

“Grimwalkers are curious things, you know,” Belos says, his tone suddenly lecturing, patronizing, kind. “I called them abominations at first, and the name stuck to something else. But they’ve grown on me.” He reaches out and touches Hunter’s forehead, ripping the bandaid away. He took off the bandaid days ago. He misses it now. He feels like something vital went with it, turning to dust in Belos’s palm. “They’re so…malleable. So easy to customize.”

Hunter struggles.

“This isn’t real,” he gasps. “This isn’t real, this is a nightmare.”

Belos chuckles. “Why can’t it be both?”

“No! No, you can’t be real. You can’t be here!”

“That’s the thing about Grimwalkers,” Belos says. He grips Hunter’s chin, makes Hunter meet his eyes. “It’s awfully easy to hitch a ride on something crafted to be a vessel.”

That means they’re not in Belos’s mind. Hunter is the vessel, the carrier that brought Belos right where he wanted to be.

But it’s Hunter’s mind. That’s why Belos is ringed in gold.

“This isn’t real!” Hunter yells, and with one last spasm of his body the things piercing him shatter like pottery, and he falls to his knees, his hands finally visible amid shards of his own corrupted soul.

Belos’s face turns ugly and furious, but he is not corrupted or fearsome — he has no palismen souls here. He tried to get them, but he couldn’t, because Hunter isn’t alone.

He kicks Hunter like he’s a rock to be launched down the street, his toe digging right into his cracked rib, and Hunter collapses on his side, bracing his arms against the next kick. Belos steps on his hand, and Hunter feels something crunch — he bites his lip so hard it bleeds to keep from screaming.

“You belong to me!” Belos snarls. “This body is a gift, and I’m taking it back!”

His body. This isn’t his real body, it can’t be. People can’t physically go inside their own minds. His real body is out there somewhere, in Gravesfield. His body ran away from the house, but it didn’t get far.

If his body dies, so will Belos. The last Grimwalker will be gone. How fitting, for them to meet the same fate. They were all the same. They were made for the same purpose, and every one of them betrayed it. Every Caleb Wittebane changed, growing from their original orders.

Hunter looks up at Belos, at Philip, at a man who never left the past behind. A man determined to purge evil from a world that had already run laps around him. Belos is furious, like he always is when he isn’t in control.

“This body isn’t yours,” he says, pushing himself up on his hands. “It’s mine. You had a body, and you wasted it. You destroyed it until your corpse can’t even be recognized as human. And I’d rather die than let you use my body.”

“It’s not yours either. You don’t even know what’s happened to it.” Belos snaps his fingers.

Suddenly, Hunter is tall, his limbs long, his voice screeching, and everyone’s scared, he’s a twisted and horrible thing — and then he’s back in his mind, gasping and shaking, knowing that vision was realer than anything he could feel here.

Something is wrong with his body.

Hopefully they can figure it out in the physical world. Hopefully Camila, determined to keep her daughter safe, can do what needs to be done. She knows how to hurt to help, how to put something down that’s too far gone to be saved.

But he’ll die as himself.

The Calebs didn’t die pointlessly. Each Golden Guard died in service of his people, standing up to a tyrant. A chain of heroism that Belos ensured remained unbroken, brought to an end by his death.

“You may have made my body,” Hunter says, “but you didn’t make my soul. That’s mine.”

And Belos starts laughing, rich and confident and warm, like Hunter’s just told a hilarious joke.

“You really don’t know anything about Grimwalkers, do you?” Belos says, amused.

“I know I have a soul!” Hunter insists.

“Oh, yes, you do,” Belos says. He grins. “But you’re not a person. That soul had to come from somewhere — and souls are a hard thing to get a hold of. It’s a good thing I could recycle them.”

Hunter’s blood runs cold. It’s not real blood, of course — it’s the fluid of his mind turning frigid.

“I remember making the original, though,” Belos continues.

“N-no,” Hunter stammers.

“Well, what else was I supposed to use?” Belos sighs. “His palisman fled. All I had left was what I carved myself.”

Hunter’s elbows collapse beneath him and he stares at the black floor, at the reflection of a dead man. At the eyes of something else.

“No,” he repeats. “No, no, no, no, no!”

Belos kicks him again, and Hunter goes limp on the floor of his mind. There is nothing left to be done but to endure, to hold out. He knows how. Every limb trembles.

“And you have the gall to think me a monster for consuming them,” Belos muses. “At least I have a soul that isn’t theirs. Now, I need your body and your soul, so give it over like a good Guard.”

A good Guard. A perfect soldier. There was a time when Hunter would have done anything to be that. Now, he doesn’t know what he wants to be. He only knows what he was, and he doesn’t like any of what he knows. Panic is bubbling from his legs up through the rest of his body.

Breathe it in. Push it down. He can panic once he’s out of danger.

“A palisman protects their witch,” Hunter says, low and rough. “I have people I want to protect you from.”

Hunter can feel Belos’s rage in the air, mounting and crackling like oncoming lightning.

“How dare you!” Belos snarls. “How dare you! You serve ”

There’s nothing behind his words — whatever part of Belos is still alive, it isn’t much. It isn’t all of him. Hunter closes his eyes, and tears squeeze through his eyelids. It doesn’t matter what Belos says. Hunter trusts Luz more, and Luz told him that he’s just Hunter. He gets to choose how he dies, if not how he lives. If his purpose is to be Belos’s tomb, that’s fine.

It’s not fine. He doesn’t want to die. He really, really doesn’t want to die. But what else is there to do?

“Listen to me!” Belos screams like a monster, but he’s still human, so it loses potency. He grabs Hunter by the hood of his cloak and lifts him so they’re eye to eye. Hunter is choking. He’s wearing the shirt Amity got for him. He can still taste hot chocolate in his mouth, rich and sweet, spiced with something Luz called cinnamon. He can still smell the flowers Willow placed around the house, grown from cuttings taken from her job. He can still hear Flapjack singing in his ear.

Belos hits him, stinging and expected, and stars burst behind Hunter’s eyes. They’re all bright blue — Gus has been making up his own documentaries, casting them in illusion magic, and Hunter thinks of his horribly incorrect approximation of a tiger shark. His stab wounds are gone, but his whole body is still wet with blood.

His scar is not there anymore, but Belos remakes it. Hunter feels blood gush from his cheek, and he remembers Camila’s hands, knows they’d be so gentle as she bandaged his face.

Camila would be so angry if she could see this. She wouldn’t let it happen, but she’s not here and —

Hunter’s eyes snap open. She is here. They’re all here; he saw them in the glimpse Belos allowed him. He spits out blood.

They’re all there, waiting on the other side. They lost their home, their friends. They can’t lose him too.

Hunter grabs Belos’s arm, lifting himself up, trying to get air. Belos lifts his other fist and prepares to strike, he swings and —

“No.”

Belos’s fist stops an inch before Hunter’s nose. He wanted to break it to match his own.

“What?” Belos asks, half indignation and half confusion — he meant to see the punch through.

“I said no.” Hunter breathes. Five in, five out. This is his mind. Whatever its origins, it belongs to him now. Every Grimwalker took it back and passed it on. “You don’t get to hurt me. Not here.”

The shoddy world Belos spun of Hunter’s soul, drawing the darkest parts around them like a shroud, begins to fracture and spin. It retreats like shadow before a lantern, revealing a great golden room with stained glass windows made of memories. Belos screams in impotent rage, dropping him, and Hunter is not afraid. He can feel Belos trying to take over, trying to creep over his skin — but he won’t get any farther. Hunter will drive him back, and Hunter will survive. On impulse, he grabs Belos’s hand. The one that kept grabbing his shoulder.

“I pinky swear,” he says, “that you will never hurt me again.”

And Belos, glowing golden, has no choice — he cannot control his own hand as it extends a finger. Because it is not his body. He doesn’t have his body anymore. Everything he is, he subsumed into Hunter, confident that the boy he groomed as a right hand would crumple beneath his will.

It’s not the first time betting on Hunter has bitten Belos in the ass. It will be the last.

“Goodbye, Uncle,” Hunter says, voice hoarse and thick with tears. He entwines their pinkies together, and their bones meet.

Chapter 5: hold the hand of the god-child

Summary:

Snipping off loose ends

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The rot recedes. It’s not peaceful like the tide going out — it fights, it claws at Hunter’s golden skin, and he writhes furiously. Every moment is agony to watch, and Camila can barely breathe, but the gold is chasing out the corruption and it’s leaving behind Hunter — and then he’s there, curled naked on his side on the forest floor, clutching his hand to his chest, and he would probably be crying but he can’t get the breath to do so. His face is bloodied, gushing red from old wounds. Camila takes off her coat and bundles him in it.

She catches a glimpse of his hand. Half of his pinky finger is still infected with something magic and unrecognizable, a seething green and brown sludge. But she knows that smell — the necrotic stench of rotting flesh. The smell of something that should have died a long time ago and has held on through willpower and fear of death. The smell that, nine times out of ten, means her patient isn’t going to make it.

“We need to get him inside,” she says. She lifts Hunter in strong arms that have carried many a wounded dog. “Come on, Hunter. Let’s get you home.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her. He keens, and it’s easy to think of him as a wounded animal, easy to put aside the fact that he’s a child far too light for a teenage boy, easy to keep her mouth sour and her hands still.

Amity tells her, voice trembling, that Hunter can probably only hold it back for so long. That he can’t force it out. That whatever this is, it’s latched on — right now, it only lives in that finger, but it will spread, and Hunter will either fight it off again or disappear for good, leaving only the rot behind. The rot that the kids agree is Belos.

Camila Noceda is a medical professional, and those are the facts of the case, the diagnosis of her patient. She will act accordingly. Camila Noceda is a mother, and Hunter is in terrible pain, begging in half-formed cries for someone to save him from it. She will act accordingly.

Willow prepares healing plants. Gus stuffs a towel into Hunter’s mouth. Amity’s abominations fetch the portable table. Luz sterilizes it, and Willow’s vines lash Hunter’s arm down. Luz fetches medical tools: a heavy-duty first aid kit and something sterilized from the kitchen.

“Look at me,” Willow says, and Hunter obeys, eyes brimming with tears. Willow holds his face in her hands, and she speaks with authority. “You’re going to be okay.”

She waves a flower beneath his nose. He passes out. Camila brings down the cleaver.

When Hunter wakes up, he can tell from the light streaming through the windows that it’s well past midday. He never sleeps in this late.

His arm hurts. Pain radiates up from his hand. It hurts, which means Belos is still in there — he tries to stand, but something’s messing with his perception, making him dizzy and weak —

Hands push him back down, and Willow’s face appears over him.

“Get away,” he croaks out. “Belos is — he’s still —“

“You’re okay, Hunter,” Willow tells him. “Belos is gone.”

Willow wouldn’t lie to him. And if he does turn into that thing again, she can take him down. Hunter relaxes.

“We, um.” Willow swallows. “Good job chasing him into your finger! But Camila…had to cut it off.”

Hunter lifts his arm, staring at the hand on the end of it. It’s almost fully bandaged. His pinky finger is gone. Just…not there, leaving an empty space where there should be something, where nothing appears no matter what angle he looks at it from. He winces. That explains the ache. But his skin is his own again, peach and clear of Belos’s corruption, so he doesn’t care about the finger.

“Is that Hunter I hear?” Camila calls from the kitchen. “I’ve got some of your favorite shrimp fajitas almost ready!”

“And the finger?” Hunter asks. “What happened to it?”

Willow grins mischievously. “Incinerated. And then we dropped by a construction site and put the ashes in concrete.”

“Hunter!” Luz squeals from the stairs. “Guys, drop the Uno, he’s awake!”

Gus and Amity thunder down the steps with her and rush to Hunter. They all give him a delicate, careful hug. Hunter feels his ears turn red — one is bandaged. His cheek is, too. He sniffles, leaning his face into Luz’s shoulder.

He’s home. He’s okay. He’s safe. He’s not a person.

His breath comes fast, but he calms it. In five, out five. His hands feel real. His body feels real — if it weren’t real, it couldn’t shake like this.

Hunter is out on the back porch, staring up at the stars, a soft blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He likes wearing blankets like that — Luz says he misses his cloak. Camila brings him hot chocolate.

“Can I sit with you?” she asks.

He nods, taking the mug in his uninjured hand. “Thank you for the hot chocolate, Camila.”

She smiles. He’s not calling her “Mrs. Noceda” anymore. She sits down.

“I wanted to apologize,” she says.

Hunter’s eyes widen. “No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong! You saved my life! It’s just like the cat with the shots, but way better, because if you hadn’t I would have been possessed and then everyone would have died.” He laughs a little. “You took out Belos once and for all! And you don’t even use magic!”

Camila smiles. “Tyrant-slayer Noceda” has a ring to it, but she doubts it’ll go over well on a resume. “That may be true.” She doesn’t feel guilty, not for a second. She knows she did the right thing. “But no matter what the reason, I still hurt you. I caused you pain, and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me, Hunter?”

Hunter nods. He sets down his hot chocolate. He looks like he wants to say something, but he can’t get it out.

Instead, he hugs Camila, squeezing her tight, and he starts crying into her shoulder, great shaking sobs that must hurt as they wrack his body. She hugs him in return, rubbing his back.

“You’re okay,” she tells him. “You’ll always have a home here. Lo prometo.”

“I’m okay,” Hunter sobs, and for the first time he actually seems to believe it.

He owes his friends an explanation, of course.

“You could have told us,” Gus says after he’s given them a details-sparse account of the Emperor’s mind. “You could have told me when I asked! We could have helped!”

They’re crowded in Luz’s room, pillows and cushions piled haphazardly on the floor. Hunter is wrapped in a cocoon of fuzzy blankets. He’s downed three cans of Spronk already. That stuff is absolutely delicious.

“Oh, well I’m sorry I didn’t run over to Hexside and let you know as soon as I found out everything I ever knew was a lie,” Hunter says scathingly. “My bad.”

“Well, you turned into a big monster!” Amity says. “That’s kind of important.”

“Not a monster, sweet potato,” Luz corrects her. Amity mumbles a bashful apology.

Hunter wraps his blankets closer around himself. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that…I couldn’t…”

He had no idea who he really was. That he was just like Belos, a false wrapper wound over something horrifying lurking beneath. That he wasn’t even a person

“Hey, it’s okay,” Willow says comfortingly. “I thought it was cool.”

Hunter looks at her, wide-eyed.

“Yeah, it was awesome!” Luz says, scrambling towards him and knocking over the card castle Gus built. “You’re nothing like Belos. It was like he was scribbling on paper with crayons, and you’re the Mona Lisa! Like Eda’s owl beast form!” She grins. “You shouldn’t be ashamed, Hunter.”

“Yeah!” Gus cheers. “You’re the last Grimwalker! That’s totally amazing!”

Hunter hides his face beneath his blankets as his cheeks heat up.

“You could have gotten hurt,” he mumbles.

“Oh, come on, Hunter,” Amity scoffs. “Do you even remember who you’re dealing with here?”

She’s got him there.

“Were you even listening?” Hunter demands. “Belos carved my soul! I’m not a person!”

Flapjack twitters an admonishment.

“Hey,” Willow says softly. Her hands reach beneath the blankets, gently cupping his chin, his cheeks. He looks up at her, and she smiles like the first time he saw a flower. “We’re your friends no matter what, okay? I know it’s scary, and you’re going through a lot right now. But we’re right here.”

Hunter nods, starstruck by her as always. His hands feel real, even as one throbs dully from the finger stump. His face is his own, blushing beneath her touch. If not for the ears, he could pass for human. He looks like a person, and he feels like one now.

“I think there’s more to it than what Belos told you,” Amity says.

“Yeah,” Luz agrees. “I mean, the same soul used over hundreds of years? I bet it learned plenty about being a person! Besides, even if you are just a palisman, we like palismen!”

They’re total weirdos, all of them. They’ll accept anything. Even him.

He’ll be okay. Sure, he apparently transforms into a big eldritch creature sometimes. But so does the Owl Lady, and she’s the greatest wild witch in the Boiling Isles.

Willow gives his forehead a quick kiss, and Hunter blushes so hard he has to hide fully beneath the blankets to hide his embarrassment. His friends giggle, but not cruelly.

There’s a Titan on the other side. The adults will come for them, Darius and Raine and the others. If Belos could find a door, so can they. And Hunter will fight to help the Isles.

But when the Boiling Isles is stable, maybe Hunter doesn’t want to return. Maybe he’s found where he belongs.

Maybe he finally gets to choose his future.

Notes:

Aaaaand that's a wrap, folks! Thanks to everyone who read, kudoesed, and commented!! I had planned for this to be my only Owl House fic just to get it out of my system, but I got so much amazing validation that I accidentally started a new one...where the kids are stuck in the human realm forever...no idea if i'll finish it but uhhhh the first scene is written. Where belos is possessing hunter again so they have him take over and then make him watch Cats (2019)
Anyway! Thanks for coming along with me on this ride!

Notes:

This fic has art now!!! Go look at it!!!!!!!
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/thedarkone121/685975213463273472?source=share

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battybatzgirl on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:04PM UTC

AAAHHHHHHHHH OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE THIS???? it's so soft and also painful, oh my heart. <3 excellent story, thank you for sharing!

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:10PM UTC
  
  thank you so much! don't worry, it gets so much more painful!
  
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Cipher_Wise on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:39PM UTC

I was looking for a fic about EXACTLY this omg. I LOVE this
😭💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:51PM UTC
  
  thank u so much!
  
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Xx_MiVeMi_xX on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:42PM UTC

I like this
Gimme more!

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:52PM UTC
  
  thank u! more is on its way tomorrow!
  
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DrafteeDragon on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:44PM UTC

I absolutely love this so far!!!!!!!! It's so so so good, and your writing is amazing

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 04:52PM UTC
  
  thank u so much :D
  
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NothingHere on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 05:16PM UTC

this is great I love it!

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 05:34PM UTC
  
  thank u!
  
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TheDarkOne121 on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 05:47PM UTC

I eagerly awaited for a story like this since the finale and the theories came running about.
I'M READY FOR THE PAIN!

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 07:22PM UTC
  
  YESSSSS! PAIN TIME
  
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TheTiniestFish on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 05:59PM UTC

Lies down on this (its so good i love how u write hunter)

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 07:22PM UTC
  
  tucks u in with a cozy blanket
  
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kennydied on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 06:40PM UTC

On one hand I'm excited and I love this! On the other hand overwhelming dread from the summary and the tags!! I can't wait to read more!!! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 07:23PM UTC
  
  excellent! your dread is warranted!
  
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Songoftheskies on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 07:37PM UTC

This is good!

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 07:50PM UTC
  
  thank u!
  
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Annitrope20 on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 08:04PM UTC

I. Am. So. Pumped. For. This.

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Tue 31 May 2022 08:06PM UTC
  
  Hell. Yes.
  
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Lean_Mean_Green_Machine on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 03:17AM UTC

Ohhh!! I’m so excited. Can’t wait to see more :D

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 08:19AM UTC
  
  thank u so much!
  
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halebopp on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 03:24AM UTC

This is soooooooo good and intriguing already I love it!!! But also I'm terrified. Can't wait for the next chapter!:)

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 08:19AM UTC
  
  thank you! terror is warranted!
  
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the_devil_was_an_angel_first on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 04:59AM UTC

I'm so excited about the next parts 😖💞
BUT! take your time and don't forget to drink some water 💙

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 08:19AM UTC
  
  hehe thank u!!!! the entire fic is already mostly finished....i may or may not have written 10k yesterday.....
  
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2. 1. the_devil_was_an_angel_first on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 02:20PM UTC
    
    omg, that so much! I'm glad that you were so taken with your work that you wrote 10k in one day, cause it means, that you were existed, but I'm upset if you didn't get enough sleep because of this or were left dehydrated. take care of yourself, dear.
    but, in any case, I'm really looking forward to the next chapters! your work is awesome 🥰
    
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  2. 1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 02:47PM UTC
      
      aaa thank u!
      
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Auralady181 on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 06:58AM UTC

I hope we see Camilla patch our children up. Snyway...waiting for next chapter.

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dundee on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 07:59PM UTC

andy what the FUCK this is so good and chilling and i am so god damn scared for what hunter brought with him

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Wed 01 Jun 2022 08:05PM UTC
  
  :3c hehehheheheh
  
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WillPark32 on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Jun 2022 06:48PM UTC

Didn't know I needed this, thanks.

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Jun 2022 07:13PM UTC
  
  hehe im always glad to make people need things they would never have dreamed of :3
  
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MasterRed on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Jun 2022 07:19PM UTC

Oh this is heartbreaking. Poor babies. Camila is a saint.

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Jun 2022 07:25PM UTC
  
  camila best mom of all time. what other mom would find out their daughter had been replaced by a doppleganger and pull out the chancla to defend said doppleganger
  
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2. 1. MasterRed on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Jun 2022 07:31PM UTC
    
    camila could defeat the collector by adopting them. she’s too powerful.
    
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  2. 1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Jun 2022 07:55PM UTC
      
      she literally could. just give that kid an ipad
      
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robinraz on Chapter 1 Fri 03 Jun 2022 12:44AM UTC

This is absolutely AMAZING

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Fri 03 Jun 2022 09:17AM UTC
  
  thank u!!!!
  
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konan_konan on Chapter 1 Sat 04 Jun 2022 11:31PM UTC

I really love this, it's like surprise adoption for all parties

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1. palant1r on Chapter 1 Mon 06 Jun 2022 08:35PM UTC
  
  the best kind of adoption
  
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iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid on Chapter 1 Sun 05 Jun 2022 01:00AM UTC

immediately opened up ao3 after finishing the finale, as one does, came across this summary, audibly said oh yeah this is the good shit, and started reading. i'm literally one paragraph in and i can already tell that this is, in fact, the good shit

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