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Hunter took his mask off and set it down on the closed toilet seat. His hands were shaking. He gripped the edge of the sink and tried to look his reflection in the eye, then promptly threw up into the basin.
When he was done, he ran the tap to flush it down the plughole. Once it was clean, he took off his gloves and put them under the running water. Then he picked up a bar of soap and attempted to scrub the blood out of the fabric.
This was something he knew how to do, from all the times he’d been injured in battle or from the times he’d been punished by Belos, and he still had to look presentable in his uniform the next day. Except all those times, it had been his own blood. He’d never had to wash out someone else’s.
He made sure the water was cold enough, then lathered the soap into the stain, and then took both ends of the fabric and rubbed them together, hard, using friction to coax out the blood. Baking soda and vinegar would also help, but Hunter didn’t feel like going to look for it. It was all he could do to keep himself from collapsing.
He couldn’t think. He felt numb.
Flashes of that witch’s face as she’d clutched at her throat, blood spilling between her fingers. Those awful sounds she made as she had tried to breathe through her punctured airway.
He tried to breathe. But the air in his lungs wasn’t enough. He felt like he was suffocating.
Not to mention the metallic smell of blood from the gloves was overpowering. It was all too much.
He was just following orders.
But he’d done it.
Hunter still couldn’t bring himself to look at the mirror. Look at the face of that murderer.
He’d killed her.
He just kept washing. He’d gotten all the blood off the gloves now, but they still felt dirty. He washed his hands. He took the knife out of his belt and washed that too. Soon, the water ran completely clear and all the blood was gone. But he kept rubbing the soap between his palms, trying to scrub away the feeling.
He was just following orders.
He dropped the soap and, for a while, he just stood there, cold water running off his wrists. His coven sigil glinting gold in the dim light of his grubby little ensuite bathroom.
He was just following orders.
He had no other choice.
Wild Witches were evil. They caused chaos and destruction. His whole family had been wiped out because of them. He was probably saving lives by what he did.
He was just. He was just following orders.
He remembered a book he’d found in the Castle library- a human book that had washed up here. A book about philosophy. It talked about the trolley problem. Kill one to save the many. It was all for the greater good, what he did.
It was the Titan’s will.
He was just following-
Fuck.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t live knowing that he had taken a life.
But if he hadn’t, someone else would’ve done it. Belos would’ve ordered another Coven Scout, maybe Steve or Severine, and they would be the ones having to wash the blood off their gloves.
Besides, it was easier for Hunter to do this. He had access to his own bathroom because Belos wanted to limit his interactions with other scouts, so he could wash his clothes in peace instead of doing it in the communal sinks. Or they would’ve had dirty gloves, which were unhygienic and against regulation anyway. That was the flaw in having white uniforms for your foot-soldiers.
So it was fine, really.
This was for the best.
And if Hunter hadn’t done it, Belos would’ve been mad. He probably would’ve had another outburst, which caused the Emperor considerable amounts of pain. And Hunter didn’t want to be the reason for that. And if Belos took it out on Hunter, he would’ve gotten hurt too. And it only would’ve done more harm than good.
After all, what’s one Wild Witch’s life?
Right?
He was just following orders.
So it was fine.
No need to be so upset.
No need to cry.
The Golden Guard doesn’t cry.
Hunter wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve.
This was probably just a reaction to the soap. Hunter wasn’t upset. He wasn’t. He wasn’t breaking. He couldn’t break. Not now.
The Emperor wouldn’t have given him that order if it wasn’t for a good reason.
After all, if that was the case, Hunter would’ve dedicated his life for nothing. He would’ve killed that woman for nothing. And that couldn’t be true, could it?
No. It couldn’t be true.
He was doing good.
It’s what the Titan wanted.
He was just following orders.
He was just following orders.
He was just-
He.
Was.
Just.
Hunter gripped the edge of the sink and retched over the bowl. He closed his eyes, and saw the woman’s body on the floor, still twitching, in the spreading pool of blood. He retched again. The third time, something actually came up.
It was lumpy, and pale, with about the consistency of fish soup. Hunter immediately started running the tap again, trying to get rid of it. He didn’t want to see any of it.
He felt his knees buckle and he sank to the floor.
Hunter still thought about that woman, over two decades later
He was only fifteen at the time.
After the fall of the emperor, a decree had been announced that all Coven Scouts would be absolved of any involvement they had in the crimes of the Emperor. The petrifications, the missing Wild Witches, the destruction of the palistrom forests, the death of thousands of palismen.
Hunter had had a hand in all of it.
He was just following orders.
Darius had campaigned to get that decree issued, when Hunter had told him what he’d done.
He hadn’t told him everything. Just the tip of the iceberg, really.
Nobody knew about the witches he’d killed.
But he’d told him enough.
Hunter’s legal deniability hadn’t made him feel any better for it, though.
He’d helped Eda set up the University of Wild Magic and train new witches in the arts. He’d helped the Bat Queen replenish her forests and carve new palismen.
But none of it made up for what he’d helped to destroy.
Nobody knew.
Not even Willow.
They’d been married for a year now. He’d been in love with her since he was sixteen. She was his whole world, and they told each other everything.
But he couldn’t tell her that.
For one thing, he couldn’t bring himself to say it all out loud. It would make it feel too real. He didn’t think he could do it without utterly breaking. He didn’t even think he could physically form the words.
For another… he didn’t know how she’d react.
She’d shown him nothing but kindness and support throughout his life, when she’d found out he’d run away from the coven, and that he was a Grimwalker, and all those other things that should’ve made him unlovable. She’d shown her capacity for forgiveness was at a goddess-like level.
But this was different.
He’d killed someone.
He remembered how hurt and betrayed she’d felt when he’d first revealed he was the Golden Guard. How she’d blamed herself for making the call to put him on the team, and had called herself all those awful things.
What would she think if he told her that he wasn’t who she thought he was? That she’d married a murderer? Would she think it was bad judgement on her part? Would she blame herself for letting Hunter into her life?
She wouldn’t forgive him, that’s for sure. And he didn’t expect her to. She’d probably divorce him on the spot, and kick him out of the house, and it would be everything Hunter deserved.
But being with her made him feel safer and more comfortable than he’d ever felt before. And he didn’t want to lose that.
He was pretty sure that made him the most selfish person in the world.
“Hunter-“ Willow called his name from the bathroom, and her voice sounded panicked. Hunter was there in a flash- literally- and saw her sitting on the linoleum floor, her back against the foot of the bath, tears brimming in her eyes, one hand over her mouth, the other holding…
Oh.
Fuck.
“Are you okay?” Was the first thing he could ask.
Willow nodded, blinking back tears.
“So, uhhh… we know I’ve had that stomach bug for a while…” Her voice sounded hoarse, barely a whisper in her disbelief.
As if to demonstrate this, she turned, grabbed the side of the bath, and hurled into it.
Hunter was at her side in an instant, holding her by the shoulders until she’d finished, then falling to the floor next to her and holding her while she shook.
“But I’m… kind of… well I’ve done the maths, and- oh, Titan , Hunter…”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
He didn’t try and look at the small, stick-like device in her hand.
He only looked at her.
“I can’t believe it…” She said, “I mean, I’m happy. Of course I’m happy. But this is all so sudden…”
“Shh. Shh. It’s gonna be okay.”
Hunter was good at crisis management. He knew how to shut down the emotional part of his brain, and focus on helping other people. He hadn’t even registered his own feelings. He just concentrated on making sure Willow was safe.
“Are you okay to stand?”
Willow nodded. Hunter slowly and gently helped her up off the bathroom floor and guided her over to the bed. She seemed physically fine, but the sheer emotion of it all made her legs wobble as she walked. He sat her down with a sick-bucket and a glass of cold water, and let her rest her head on his shoulder until her breathing was steady.
“Oh, Titan, this is incredible,” she said, “Hunter- we’re having a baby! I’m just… I’m just so happy.”
“Yeah… I’m happy too.”
But Hunter felt hollow inside.
He gently shifted away so that she was no longer leaning on him, and stood up.
“You take it easy today, alright? Is there anything you need me to do for you?”
Willow rubbed her forehead, “No, I’m alright.”
“How about I cook something nice for dinner? Y’know, to celebrate. You’re eating for two, now, after all.”
Hunter needed to be useful. He needed to be proactive. And he needed an excuse to get out of the house and breathe some actual air.
Willow sighed, and scooted over on the bed so that she could rest her head up against the headboard, “That sounds lovely. But at some point we do need to sit down and talk about what this means. For our future, our family, we need to plan for our finances, for nurseries, for-“
“All in good time, my love,” He smiled at her, but he was falling apart on the inside.
Hunter was good at keeping the appearance of composure. As the Golden Guard, he had to learn to keep his back straight and keep facing forwards in the absolute worst of times. He learned to be commanding and sinister while being scared beyond belief.
Sure, he could hide behind his mask on most of time, but he also got into the practice of keeping a neutral face without it as well, especially around Belos.
Never show weakness.
He couldn’t tell Willow everything that was racing through his mind at lightspeed right now.
He tried his best to keep up the smiles for her, but as good as he was at hiding his emotions, she was still his wife. She knew his tells.
He had to get out of there.
He told Willow he was going up to the shops to get ingredients for their dinner. As soon as he was out of view of the windows of their cottage, he slumped against a palistrom tree and finally let open the flood gates in his brain.
Fuck.
This was not good.
He wasn’t ready to be a dad. As much as he loved Willow, he couldn’t do this. He barely knew how to function as a person sometimes.
And of course he’d do his best love this child. But he couldn’t trust himself not to screw it up.
He’d grown up being taught that mistakes cost you. Over time he’d learned that it was okay to mess up.
But this was different. This was someone else’s life.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about the witch he’d killed twenty years ago.
He still saw her guttering, choking, writhing form as she lay there dying. He’d seen it clear as day then, even through the small eyeholes of his Golden Guard mask, and he saw it just as clearly now.
He’d held the fate of someone else’s life in his hands then as well. But instead of creating it, he had taken it away.
He had just been following orders back then. But now he had choices.
The thing was, Hunter didn’t know how to make those choices.
From the moment he had been created and basically up until the day he’d met Willow he had never needed to make a single choice in his life.
He had never had the chance to.
All he was good at was following orders.
He was just following orders.
All he’d done for the emperor, all the cruelty he’d inflicted in his name, all the pain, all the suffering- it all came flooding back to him.
He couldn’t breathe. Or maybe he was breathing too much.
Hunter’s vision was spinning.
He’d killed her.
A killer couldn’t raise a kid.
Willow was pregnant with his child.
The child of a murderer.
How could he possibly be a good father with everything he’d done? How could he hold his baby with blood on his hands? How could a cruel, twisted thing like him possibly love and care for something that precious?
When they had first met, he had befriended Willow with an ulterior motive, betrayed her, and tried to kidnap her.
Still, she somehow had trusted him that day at Hexside when he’d said he wasn’t working for the Coven anymore. And she’d continued to trust him throughout the years, despite the fact that she had no reason to. Despite the fact that he was only designed to be a tool for destruction.
And it hadn’t made him an easier candidate for her trust after finding out he was a clone of Belos’ dead witch-hunter brother.
Shit.
He hadn’t even thought about being a grimwalker.
He had no idea how that would come into play, how it would affect Willow while she was carrying the child. As far as he knew, no grimwalker had ever lived to have kids.
What if there was a problem? Most books on grimwalkers still believe them to be a myth, only dealing with hypotheticals. The only real hard research on them was from Belos’ library and his notes from his experiments, and most of that was lost when the castle was destroyed, and the stuff that wasn’t never delved into the reproductive biology of reanimated clones of dead guys. He knew nothing about how his baby would turn out, or what could happen to Willow during pregnancy. What if something went wrong? What if she got hurt? It would be Hunter’s fault. Again. And he would never forgive himself.
And he still couldn’t get out of his head the memory of that day at the conformatorium, when Belos had given him the knife, and the order to use it. The fear in the woman’s eyes as he’d approached.
She must’ve been so scared.
Even Hunter was afraid of himself.
He sat there, hyperventilating, his back against the trunk of a tree, for Titan-knows how long.
He loved Willow. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to raise a kid with her. He cared about her so much it hurt. He cared about this cottage and the garden and the forest of palistrom trees and the life they’d built.
The thing he cared about most, though, was keeping her and his unborn child safe, and how could she be safe with a killer in the house?
But she didn’t know what he’d done. She was totally clueless to the kind of terrible person that he was.
She needed to know the truth, in order to have the option to get out and keep her and the baby from getting hurt. He trusted her more than anyone to make the right decision to keep their family out of harm’s way.
As much as it absolutely flooded Hunter’s stomach with dread, he knew what he had to do.
He had to tell her.
For her safety, and the safety of his child.
“Hunter, are you okay? Where are you? It’s almost dark out- I’m worried.”
Hunter tried to balance the raven-phone between his cheek and his shoulder while navigating his staff over the tops of the palistrom trees.
“Sorry. Sorry. I’m just…” Hunter rubbed his face, “I’m taking the long route home. I’ve gone for a walk to just… get my head straight. Think about a few things. But I’m coming home now. Don’t worry.”
“Okay…” By the sound of her voice, Willow didn’t seem to have taken the “not worrying” advice to heart.
“Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
“I’m fine, Hun. Be back soon. And be safe. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
It was dark outside by the time Hunter came back with the shopping. He put the bags in the entryway and hung his keys on the hook by the door.
Willow was washing the dishes in the sink, soap suds covering her rubber gloves. She looked up when he came in.
“Willow, I…”
“What is it?”
“I have to tell you something.”
Willow read Hunter’s expression, and immediately dropped the pans she was washing back in the basin, turned off the tap, and slipped off her rubber gloves. She sat down at the kitchen table, and stayed silent, waiting for Hunter to talk.
“I-it was… oh, Titan, it was twenty-three years ago now, and I had only been Golden Guard for a couple of months, b-but-“
He drew a shaky breath.
Willow reached out and squeezed his shoulder, “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” she said, “But I understand if you need some time-“
“No. You should know. If we want to raise a family together, I don’t want to keep anything from you.”
“Okay.”
“A lot of Wild Witches disappeared during the Emperor’s reign. Those who didn’t join covens were taken to the conformatorium and tortured, or petrified, o-or some of them just vanished. Nobody knew what happened.”
“Hunter, I know all this. I was there.”
Hunter shook his head, blinking back tears.
And then he told her.
He told her about all the things Belos had made him do.
Not just the ones who’d died by his hands, but the ones he’d helped capture, that had ended up in the halls of the petrified. The palismen he’d handed to him on a platter.
All the death and destruction he’d caused.
All the blood he’d washed down the sink.
Willow didn’t sat anything. Hunter didn’t look her in the eye.
“I… I should’ve told you sooner. But I understand if this means you can’t look at me the same way again. If you don’t want me to take care of your baby after all that I’ve-“
“What?! Hunter, no. No, no, this is your child as much as it is mine. You’re an amazing husband, and gonna be an amazing father, and I wouldn’t’ve agreed to marry you if I’d thought otherwise. Your past doesn’t matter to me. You’re my family.”
And that’s when Hunter broke. He began to sob- the salty tears stung his scars and made his face feel numb.
Willow held him, wrapping her strong arms around his back. He buried his face in her shirt. She smelled like warmth and fabric softener and sunflowers and everything that was good in the world. Titan, he didn’t deserve her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Shhh, no, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’m just sorry you had to go through that.”
“B-but-“
“Belos tricks people,” She said, “You told Luz that once, remember? He’s tricked all of us- the whole boiling isles- and he tricked you, too.”
“I killed someone, Willow,” He said, “And it wasn’t just her, there were others. All those missing Wild Witches that were never found. It was all me.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was Belos. He’s the one responsible. He ordered you to do it. Hunter, he was using your guilt to control you, can’t you see? He knew what it would do to you, and he took advantage of that. And it wasn’t like you could say no to him… Hun. Hun, look at me. We’re a team. We always have been. And I want you on my team no matter what. I don’t care about what you’ve done in the past. I know it’s not who you are anymore. You’re not a danger to me, or our kid, or anyone. You’re my husband.”
“But still, I should’ve-“
“Hunter, you were a child .”
Hunter fell silent. This was too much. He was too exhausted and numb and emotionally drained to argue. He just let himself sink into the warmth of Willow’s embrace, feeling as raw as fresh scar tissue. He just wanted to stay here, wrap himself in the comfort of her forgiveness- however misplaced he thought it was- and let the world outside of their kitchen table not matter anymore.
He felt like a weight that he’d been carrying for so long that his shoulders had gone numb from pain had decreased a little. Not lifted entirely, but a few pieces of straw had been taken off the camel’s back and now it didn’t feel like it was breaking just as much as it had been for quite some time, since he was fifteen.
He felt safe.
“I love you,” He whispered into her shoulder.
She stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head, “I love you, too.”
He couldn’t just forgive himself like that, but the fact that Willow could still say she loved him, still hold him, still kiss him, the fact that she still trusted him and wanted to raise a kid with him- it probably counted for something. It was a start, at least.
It gave him hope for the future.