Chapter Text
Life in the Boiling Isles was exciting following the aftermath of the Day of Unity, and for once, it wasn’t in a bad way. Witches and demons alike worked to officially abolish the restrictive coven system and turn the Isles into a republic, electing Steve of all people as their first President (who’d’ve guessed he had so much political talent?). On a more personal level, Edalyn Clawthorne finally managed to get her hands on the shiniest blood diamond she could find, totally legally she’d add, and use it to propose to the love of her life. Raine Whispers (now Raine Clawthorne) was just happy everyone had fun at the wedding they worked hard to plan.
Everything was at peace. At least, until Luz Noceda had to say goodbye to everyone in order to spend the school year with her mother in the Human Realm.
Once the portal closed behind her, King Clawthorne was inconsolable. He wasn’t having any of his infamous tantrums (Eda suspected he was growing out of those), but he refused to talk to anyone else in the house, barely ate any of the meals Raine served, and wouldn’t even play with his stuffed animals, preferring to just sulk in the corner of the living room.
Not even Hooty being Hooty could break King out of his sullen state.
“I’ve never seen him in a mood like this,” Eda said, pouring cups of pre-bedtime apple blood for herself and Raine. “Is this some kind of weird phase teenage Titans go through or something?”
“I don’t think so,” Raine said, then took a sip from the apple blood Eda handed to them. “He probably just misses Luz. Don’t you remember how depressed you were when Lilith left for the Emperor’s Coven?”
Eda raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but that was different. Luz isn’t gonna be gone forever, she’ll be back every summer. Shouldn’t he know that?”
“Of course he knows that, but he can’t help how he feels about it. Right now, the best thing we can do is help him through these emotions as best we can.”
“As long as you do most of the talking, Rainestorm. You’re always better at all the emotional stuff than me.”
Raine chuckled as they sipped on their apple blood. “Don’t sell yourself so short, Eda.”
That night, right after they tucked King into bed, they finally asked him if something was wrong.
“I don’t know,” he said, “it’s just that– ever since Luz left I… I can’t do anything. Everything I want to do just feels like a chore without her around, I guess.”
Eda reached over and stroked the spot in between his horns, attempting to comfort him. “Hey, don’t worry, I know exactly what you’re going through right now. When Lily left for the Emperor’s Coven, I don’t think I even got out of bed for weeks.”
“Her mom made me come over just to make sure she was eating enough,” Raine added.
King just kept on staring at the floor. “Does this feeling ever… go away?”
Eda mulled over her answer for a moment, then looked over at Raine for confirmation. They nodded.
“Well, you see, it can go away, but not on its own. You need support for that to happen. I had Raine to help me when I was in your shoes, and I want to make sure you know that you’ll always have us to support you. All you have to do is ask for it.”
King blinked at them, before jumping up and enveloping them in a huge hug (as best he could with his little arms).
“I love you guys,” he said. “You’re the best parents a guy could ask for.”
Eda wiped away a few tears that slipped out of the corners of her eyes, only to glance over at Raine, who had streams of tears running down their eyes and an ear-to-ear smile on their face.
“He called me his ‘parent’, Eda!” they mouthed, stroking the fur on King’s back.
She couldn’t help but crack a smile of her own. Their unbridled enthusiasm towards parenting never failed to warm her heart.
He let go a few minutes later, settling back into a comfortable position on his bed and closing his eyes. Eda gave the spot between his horns one last rub before getting up to turn off the light.
“Wait!”
She paused, fingers still gripping the light switch. Now, King was standing up, waving his arms back and forth to get his parents’ attention.
“What is it now, kid?” Eda asked.
“I just thought of a way you guys can help me right now.”
She walked back over to King’s bedside and sat down, Raine joining her. “Well, what is it?” they said.
“One of my favorite things Luz used to do was to tell me an ancient human folktale before I went to sleep. It turns out the Human Realm has a ton of cool stories, like the one about the farm boy who saved the entire galaxy, or the one where these sorcerers brought back terrifying monsters called ‘dinosaurs’, or the one where they had to destroy something called the ‘one ring’. That one was really cool.”
Eda couldn’t help but snort-laugh. “Those are all human movies, King. I can’t believe Luz told you they were high-brow folktales or something. I probably have old tapes of all of them lying around somewhere.”
King’s eyes widened a bit at that revelation, but he shook his head. “Anyways, you guys could probably tell me a story that’s even better!”
Just as Eda was about to let him down as gently as she could, Raine said, “Of course! How about we start tonight? I’m sure Eda has some great stories.”
Why did they feel the need to betray her like this? “Yeah, but I’ll have to alter most of them. After all, I haven’t given King the talk yet.”
King cocked his head to the side like a curious puppy. “What talk?”
Her face started to flush. “Alright, alright, I guess I’ll just try to make something up. Raine, can you play some kind of… atmospheric background music?”
They nodded and materialized their violin in front of them, plucking out a short, simple melody. Meanwhile, she racked her brain for story ideas. It couldn’t just be any generic tale, she decided. It had to be dramatic, suspenseful, funny, and, above all, it absolutely had to have a happy ending. But ideas kept on eluding her, especially for characters to focus on.
Then she remembered why King wanted her to do this in the first place.
He missed Luz more than anything, so why not tell a story where she was the hero? Why not take it a step further and put her friends in the story, too?
“Okay, I think I’ve got something.”
King looked towards Eda with wide eyes as Raine started to play a whimsical tune.
“Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a tiny kingdom by the sea, ruled by the cruel Queen Odalia and her husband, King Alador.”
“Aren’t those the Blight parents?” King asked. “Why’s the story about them?”
“It’s not about them, per se,” Eda said. “I’m just giving a bit of exposition so you have some context as to how the story is gonna work.”
She cleared her throat and continued. “The queen and king had three children together, first twins named Emira and Edric, and then a little girl named Amity who quickly became Odalia’s favorite. But soon after she was born, Alador was cursed by a warlock to be unable to speak until the mouse devoured the hawk.”
“Hasn’t the poor guy been through enough, Eda?” Raine said.
“And can’t they just find a really big mouse and a really small hawk to break the curse?” King asked.
“Unfortunately, nothing they tried could break his curse, not even a really big mouse and a really small hawk. Alador did figure out a way to communicate via pantomime, but he lost hope of ever truly speaking again. Years passed and the twins turned eighteen years old. Odalia intended to find matches for both of them in neighboring kingdoms, but they found partners of their own instead. Emira married the head stablehand and Edric married the royal gardener, which greatly upset Odalia since they were both lowly commoners. So when her favorite child, Amity, came of age, she made sure that wouldn’t happen again. The first restriction she placed was that Amity could only marry someone with royal blood, specifically the child of a king and queen who was in line to rule their own kingdom. Not long after that, a wise and beautiful princess came to ask for Amity’s hand in marriage, charming the royal court and falling in love with Amity within weeks of her arrival. But the queen would only accept pure and utter perfection in a match for her favorite child, so she imposed a second restriction. All suitors who came to the kingdom had to pass rigorous tests to prove their worth, and if they failed, they would be permanently banished. The visiting princess succeeded every test given to her at first, but she failed the very last one and was banished, leaving Amity heartbroken.”
“Nooooooo!” King squealed.
“As a matter of fact, she was so heartbroken that even the ringing of wedding bells from outside the castle was enough to bring her to tears. This caused Odalia to place her third and final restriction, which applied to the whole kingdom: no one else could get married until Amity did.”
“Well that’s just silly,” Raine said. “What kind of ruler would pass a law to punish their people for some arbitrary reason?”
Eda and King just stared blankly at them until they realized the error in what they said. “Upon reflection, I’m going to formally rescind that criticism.”
“Alright, no more snarky comments from the audience, I’m about to get to the good part,” Eda said.
“Two years went by, and eleven more princesses sought out Amity’s hand, only to meet the exact same fate. Many in the kingdom were beginning to lose hope that Amity would get married at all, especially the young couples who wouldn’t have their chances to get married.”
“Sorry to interrupt again,” Raine said, “but can I take over for a bit? I just had the most amazing idea.”
“Oh really, Rainestorm?” Eda said. “Then spill it.”
“When you mentioned young couples, it reminded me of this absolutely delicious bit of gossip that Darius was telling me over tea the other day—”
“Actually, never mind. Surprise us.”
Raine winked, then switched to playing a slow, romantic ballad on their violin as they continued the story. “One of these young couples resided within the castle itself, since one was a lady-in-waiting named Willow and the other was a talented knight named Hunter.”
Wow, that is a delicious bit of gossip, Eda thought. Tweedledum and the Golden Boy? Never would’ve come up with that myself.
“They wanted nothing more than to be officially married, but under Queen Odalia’s law, that wasn’t possible. Of course, there were a few brave couples who tried to go around it by marrying in secret, but they were locked in the castle’s dungeon and forbidden from ever seeing each other again. Neither of them wanted to risk this terrible fate for themselves, so they decided to be careful and bide their time until Princess Amity’s wedding day. But fate has a way of disrupting even the most thought-out plans. On the day the twelfth princess was banished from the kingdom...
Lady Willow was embroidering a rose into a silk handkerchief, sitting by her open window to get some fresh air (as suggested by the palace doctor). Her closest friend, Lord Augustus, sat nearby on the edge of her bed.
“Isn’t it cruel?” she said, poking her needle into a nearly completed rose and pulling the thread through to the other side of the fabric. “This should be the happiest news of our lives. But Queen Odalia has never been kind to ladies-in-waiting who were…”
Augustus opened her mouth to finish her sentence, but she shushed him and gestured to the open window and door.
“And then there’s that stupid marriage law!” she continued, stabbing another stitch into the fabric.
“You mean the official royal decree that ‘Nobody in the kingdom will wed ‘til Amity shares her wedding bed’? That woman is such a hypocrite.”
Willow nodded, then ended off her red thread and reached into her dress pocket for a spool of green to make leaves. “At least Princess Victoria has passed every test so far. She’s probably acing the last one right now, and Amity will pick me as her maid of honor next week at the latest.”
A second later, a distraught wail reverberated through the stone walls of the castle, along with the steady march of the royal guard. Augustus ran over to the door, making sure to look out as inconspicuously as possible.
“What was that?” Willow asked.
He turned towards her, a frown etched clearly on his face. “That… was Princess Victoria. Being restrained by Odalia’s… entire guard. Sobbing so hard her makeup is well past ‘ruined’. Get me the board.”
But Willow didn’t get him the board, because she was too busy staring blankly down at her embroidery hoop. Augustus just sighed and brought a stool over to the wall so he could reach the chalkboard reading “Days since the last banishment” and change the “61” to a zero.
“I was actually starting to like Victoria, too,” she said after about a minute of silence. “Not to mention that the match would’ve been really good for the kingdom—”
“Need I remind you that that’s exactly what you said about Princess Lorelai?” Augustus deadpanned. “And Princess Katherine. And Princess Genevieve. And Princess Persephone. And Princess Charlotte. And—”
He was interrupted by the sharp crunch of wood and the tearing of silk as Willow tore her project clean in half.
“Gah!” she exclaimed, throwing the destroyed halves on the floor, “I’ve had it with this stupid decree and all of Odalia’s stupid rules and all these stupid banishments! I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve made an enemy out of every neighboring kingdom by now, just because of that woman’s need to make everything perfect, perfect, perfect!”
After kicking her project around the floor a few times, she walked over to the door and slammed it so hard that Augustus jumped nearly half a foot into the air, then did the same to the window.
“Willow, calm down,” he said. “This isn’t over yet. I’m sure at least some of those princesses have younger sisters or something…”
“It would take years for them to come of age, Augustus. Years that, may I remind you, we no longer have because I am having a goddamn baby!”
She rolled onto her bed and screamed into her pillow until she felt the sweet rush of catharsis overtake her, then rolled on her other side and stared up at the ceiling. “At this rate, hiding out on that tiny uninhabited island my dads conveniently own is basically my only option. But then what would happen to the baby? What if someone figures out they’re Sir Hunter’s kid? Then his reputation would be ruined right along with mine and— Oh, Odalia’s guard is probably gonna catch me taking a boat out of here and throw me in the dungeon anyway.”
Just then, a distinct pattern of knocks landed on the outside of the window.
“Speak the devil’s name and he shall appear,” Augustus said.
“I’ll let him in,” Willow said, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and standing up. The same pattern of knocks landed on the window, louder this time, and she practically sprinted over to open it. As soon as she did, a bright red horse stuck its head through, nuzzling Willow’s cheek.
“Aw, I’m happy to see you too, Flapjack,” she said, stroking his neck and giving him a peck on the nose.
“Any more for me, fair lady?”
The horse’s rider offered his armored hand to Willow, who took it and helped him into the room.
“I always have some saved for you, Sir Hunter,” she said, lifting the cover of his helmet and giving him a quick peck on the lips.
Augustus cleared his throat from where he was still standing by the door. Hunter took off his helmet completely, shook out his hair, and wrapped him in a tight embrace.
“So,” he said as soon as he let go, “any news on that final test the queen gave Princess Victoria?”
They both pointed to the “Days since the last banishment” sign on the wall and Hunter groaned.
“We’ve banished twelve princesses in two years,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve made a lot of enemies by now.”
“That’s exactly what I was saying!” Willow said.
“It doesn’t matter.” He got down on one knee and grasped Willow’s hands. “I’d be willing to wait a hundred more years if it meant I got to be your groom one day.”
Then Augustus cleared his throat. “I’m gonna give you two some privacy for a few minutes. No reason in particular!” And with that, he’d slipped out of the room, making sure the door was closed behind him.
“What was that about?” Hunter asked.
Willow sighed and brought Hunter to his feet. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Oh, Titan, what happened? Did you go to the palace doctor? Do you have some kind of incurable illness?”
“No, no, no, don’t worry. I’m fine. It’s just that… Well, the doctor told me that I’m pregnant. Only a few weeks along, though.”
The entire room fell silent after that. All they could hear were the sounds of the summer breeze and birds chirping from outside the open window.
“T-That’s wonderful news,” Hunter whispered. “At least it should be, but there’s the marriage decree and you’re Amity’s lady-in-waiting and—”
“Stop!” Willow said, covering his mouth. “I’ve already done enough worrying for the both of us. I’ve got a plan to fix this. My dads own an empty little island in the southern ocean, I can find a boat to take me there, and—”
“NO!” Hunter’s shout nearly shook the stone walls. “I’m not going to let you suffer for the rest of your life just because of bad timing!”
“But Odalia…”
“I’m not afraid of her. I’ll gladly take whatever consequences she gives me if it means you stay safe.”
“Oh, Hunter…” She caressed his jaw with both hands and kissed him again, making sure he knew how thankful she was for him at that moment. He gladly reciprocated, running his armored hand over her back. They broke apart a few seconds later, smiles on both of their faces.
“But where else could we find a bride for Amity?” Willow mused.
Hunter tapped his foot on the ground a few times, lost in thought, before coming up with something. “I have an idea. I could venture to the north, through the mountain pass and into the marshlands beyond, and find a princess there who’d be willing to marry her! With any luck, wedding bells will be ringing in this kingdom again!”
“I don’t know,” Willow said. “You’d have to petition Odalia to go north, and I’m not sure she’d be too keen on having another suitor around so soon after Princess Victoria was banished.”
“I’m the most trusted knight in the kingdom, the queen will at least hear me out. I’ll petition her first thing tomorrow morning!” With that, he put his helmet back on and walked towards the open window.
“For our baby’s sake, I hope you’re right,” Willow said. And after Hunter climbed back onto Flapjack’s saddle and they shared one more kiss, he trotted away.
She closed the window and started cleaning up the discarded pieces of her embroidery project, unaware that just outside, King Alador was outside on a mid-afternoon stroll.
And he’d overheard practically their entire conversation.