Chapter Text
A week passed and Amity still couldn’t believe everything was finally over.
She was waiting for some nonsense to come up. Some ploy, some power-hungry scheme to take over while everybody was at their lowest. But it never happened, - or she didn’t hear about it, which was fine with her. She had enough of this madness to last a lifetime.
If this vague feeling was the price for peace she can take it.
Amity hadn’t seen her friends in a week. Everybody has been too busy figuring out things. They needed to find their loved ones and figure out where they were going to stay, what they were going to eat, and several other things that didn’t even cross her mind. But they kept in touch via scroll messages and calls.
It was a surreal week, to say the least. Amity must have spent more time with her father and siblings in these measly seven days than in the last couple of years.
She wasn't complaining. Far from it.
There were times when Amity thought she would never have a good relationship with her family. That whatever they had was truly, irreparably broken, that she shouldn’t even bother. When she starts to connect more with Ed and Em, and her father promises to do better, the whole world comes to an end and she is stuck in another dimension. In those three months, she spent in the Human Realm, Amity prepared to never see her family again - she wasn't proud about it, but it was the worst-case scenario, and she didn’t want to be caught off guard. It was morbid and depressing and now looking back she feels a little silly about it.
That was something she should talk to a therapist about.
It was all fine in the end. She had her family, - most of it, she only met her mother once and after that, Odalia had the grace to make herself scarce - her friends, were all fine and healthy and slowly making steps toward recovery.
It was more than she dared to hope for not only a week ago.
Speaking of recovery. Amity was out on her own today looking through what was on offer at the market - they called it that, but it acted more like a charity organization, offering everything from clothing to food, to other necessities. Dad took Ed to the healers in the morning, Em has been volunteering at the Healing Coven as well. So Amity volunteered to get the groceries.
The people are nice. An elderly demon asks how she is doing if they need anything specific, and then she hands her a pre-made package with the essentials. Then she was off to another demon looking for the very same things Amity did.
She didn’t want to hold up the line so she hurried along.
Things were still far from normal. Still, somehow it felt like that in a roundabout way. People were going about their business. Buildings were being rebuilt, farming resumed, and even some of the shops opened back up offering their old wears and services for free - if there was something that everybody agreed on was that nobody felt that it was right to ask for snails, not this close to the tragedy at least. In a way, it was refreshing to see that usually, cutthroat Boiling Isles turn this compassionate - the end of the world puts things into perspective, it seems.
Amity picked up a couple more things before deciding to walk around a little bit. She finished sooner than she expected so nobody would be home yet.
So she continued to browse the stalls, looking for anything that would catch his eyes.
Then she ran into somebody she didn’t expect. Hunter. With the longer hair and that many scars, she almost didn’t recognize him. He was wearing clothes slightly big for him and the dark circles under his eyes were back.
He must be not sleeping again, she couldn’t blame him.
Amity is sure she doesn’t look any better either - everybody seemed tired these days.
She calls out to him and he turns, she didn’t expect him to smile. Maybe that was a sign that he was doing better just a little bit.
Amity hadn’t seen him for a week, and only sparsely talked on the scroll. She too was rarely on, she guessed everybody had things to do. But now both of them seemed to be free so they sat down on some rubble at the corner of a street, out of the way from the other marketgoers.
“Have you got stuck with grocery duty too?” Amity asked as a way to start a conversation. Their bags were sat down beside them.
Hunter shakes his head. “Darius is here somewhere,” he nodes towards the crowded market. “He wanted to get some ‘wearable clothes’ so we might be here for a while. I volunteered to get everything else while he finishes.”
“Darius? The Coven Head?”
“I’m staying with him. And also with Eberwolf. For the time being at least.” Amity doesn't miss the small fond smile that appears on his face as he mentions them.
“Ah,” she says as acknowledgment. “How are you doing, by the way? No offense but you seem rough.”
“You too, Blight.”
“Okay, that's fair.”
Hunter shrugs. “You know, it’s… I’m fine.”
Amity frowns. “You know that when people say they are fine, usually they aren’t.”
“I’m doing as fine as I can,” he admits quietly. “It’s been hard… I miss Flapjack. Sometimes, it feels like nothing is going to be right again.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” she nods along.
They sat like that in silence for a while. The people were still milling on about around them. Nobody really minded them, they didn’t even give them looks. A couple of concerned people sometimes asked if everything was alright, they would just smile and gently usher the person along.
“You know,” Amity sat up straight. “It’s going to be alright. I mean, look around, people already started rebuilding the Isles, and the danger is gone. It’s going to be fine. So we are going to be fine as well.”
Hunter gave her a small smile. “Didn’t you say that people don’t believe when you say you are ‘fine?’”
“Well, it’s for real this time!”
“Have it your way,” Hunter rolled his eyes playfully.
“Have you met with anybody else?” Amity asked.
“No,” he shook his head. “I have been talking with Willow on the scroll more, but that’s it. I think everybody is just exhausted from saving the entire Demon Realm.”
“Yeah, it’s been a week. At this point, I don’t think I will ever wake up rested again.”
“You will manage,” Hunter says standing up. “I better go start looking for Darius.”
“Okay, talk to you later,” Amity waves him goodbye. “And, Hunter. We really should get together sometimes. Have some fun.”
“We could use some of that, can’t we?”
He waves too and now she is all on her own. But before Amity got the chance to dwell deep into her thoughts she felt her scroll going off. It’s a message from her father. They were done with Ed’s check-up and were ready to head home. He also asks how she is doing.
A warm feeling blossoms in Amity’s chest.
She writes that she is alright, and just finished as well. They can go home together if they can wait for her. She then picks up her bag and starts heading in the direction her dad gave her.
And then, in that moment, she finds that she believes what she said earlier to Hunter. Everything is going to be fine.