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Hunter's room is littered with his possessions. Books on wild magic he studies in his free time, poster's he's had tacked up for years, a plush toy stuffed under his pillow. He collects these items to try and make his room into a home for himself. Although the Emperor's Castle is admired by many, the entire place seems... unnaturally warm. Hunter had never found himself completely comfortable with its grim grey exterior, harsh lighting, and metallic adornments.
Nowhere was this more true than with Emperor Belos himself. Belos strove to project an image of just rule, an iron fist of the Titan ruling over the Boiling Isles. His white robes and bronze mask could have seemed simple or benevolent on someone else, but on Belos they showed false warmth, drained colors containing freezing blue eyes and a horrific form underneath. The word demonic would do an injustice to the kinder demons of the Isles, Hunter thinks.
Hunter feels a cold hand on his shoulder, and snaps out of his thoughts into Belos' unforgiving stare. A heart beats steadily in the back of the room, and a cruel passion radiates from Belos. His grip gets tighter. Hunter winces.
"It has been a week since your initial failure to find me palismen," Belos mutters. "And yet, you can still find me nothing for my nourishment?"
Hunter clenches his fists, one around his glowing staff, and thinks of a cardinal resting in the corner of his room. "No, uncle, there's nothing else I could find. Seems palistrom wood has taken your stance on wild magic, and made itself impossible to find." The ghost of a laugh rests on Hunter's breath. Belos removes his hand from Hunter's shoulder. Hunter relaxes for a moment, until a sharp tendril shoots at his chest.
"I want someone who will be happy and respectful in my embrace and care. Do you believe there is something funny about my deteriorating state, boy?" Belos' grating voice rings through the hall.
Hunter bows his head low. "No, uncle."
"Good." Belos settles back in his throne with a sigh. "The Isles would collapse without my rule. Take it from a man no longer young, these witches need shackles and chains to keep them bound to the Titan's will. The promise of wild magic fills their minds with hope and promises. It is a light that must be crushed."
"A light?" Hunter braces himself for an outburst, even though he knows this information could possibly help Belos. "The human, Luz, has managed to create light without the use of traditional spells. Elemental glyphs, which can combine with each other to create something new. If we could perhaps take a similar approach and get the healing coven on board you might not need the palismen–"
"Did I ask for your input?" Belos' voice is cold and deep, emanating throughout the room. The sharp tendril moves upward towards Hunter's neck. "I have already encountered the human. I will deal with her eventually. Your job, which you seem to have forgotten, is to get me more palismen. If you cannot do that, well, I expect more from you, Hunter." Hunter steps backward, and the tendril follows. Belos' eyes burn blue in front of him. At his feet lay ashes of the palismen he's devoured. "You want to keep your head, don't you?"
Hunter blinks. This is the first time Belos has threatened him with words, harsher than the way he’s threatened civilians under orders in the past. The heart beats faster in the background as soon as Belos finishes talking about Luz, a cynical drum beat to Hunter’s demise. Hunter again remembers the cardinal chirping around his feet in Latissa and flying into his room. He knows he cannot continue in this direction.
"Of course, Uncle. I'll start my patrol as soon as I leave."
"Very well. For our sake, I want you to succeed," Belos says. The tendril finally recedes.
They both leave the hall, Belos’ mask hiding his cruel gaze and Hunter’s hiding two desperate tears.
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Hunter somehow waits and panics. He doesn’t know what to do, but staying in the Emperor’s Castle isn’t right. He dreams of two boulders of ice set against jet-black sky and metallic earth. The ice spikes outward to chase him, and Hunter knows he will be stabbed or frozen if it reaches him. He runs and runs and wakes up breathing heavily.
To keep his mind off his dreams and try to look for a way out of the castle, Hunter patrols the Boiling Isles, looking for the human and her house. He overhears her conversation between her and a witch clad in purple about research on a portal to the human realm. He pores over books in his room, studying theories by ancient witches of magic not working in the human realm. He walks back into the hall where Belos' unfinished creation for the Day of Unity awaits, and leaves with a stack of papers and a plan.
Hunter panics and waits. Two weeks later, he is rewarded. The walls of the castle whisper rumors of Belos' weak state, with no nourishment to sustain him. Hunter sees Belos’ unnatural form crack through white robes, lashing out at the empty room with unplaced and unforgiving anger at being weaker for the first time in years.
Hunter returns to his room, and waits for nightfall. As the moon hangs over the Emperor's Castle, Hunter casts a small illusion of himself, takes a deep breath, and stares out his window. He hangs his cardinal staff over his shoulder, and with a small sack hanging on the end, flies out into the warm night.
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This plan is a mess, Hunter realizes as he's speeding away from the castle. He's never gone against Emperor Belos so outright before. Hunter takes off his mask and stares down at it, the metallic sheen the same color as Belos' mask. It reflects the moonlight and Hunter tucks it into his cloak. Perhaps the Golden Guard was as fake an identity as Belos' benevolence. How many threats has he given, how much damage has he done to the people he now speeds above? Remorse is a funny feeling, Hunter thinks, and looks to his left, unable to stare straight into his surroundings and think about the damage he and Belos have done. Even if Luz agrees to help him, does he deserve it?
Birds chirp and a griffin calls in the night breeze. Hunter suddenly realizes he's above a forest, one of the sources of wild magic Belos despised for its ability to grow and change, helping witches gain more power. "I hope you continue to live," Hunter whispers, his words loud to himself despite not directed to any creature in particular.
A small chirp suddenly comes from the back of his staff. Hunter's cardinal jumps onto his lap and nudges its head forward.
"Oh! You want to... help?" The cardinal chirps again, and flies into the distance. Hunter smiles, remembering how attached the cardinal had been to Luz before it came to him. Of course his palisman would help in any plan that involved her. Hunter flies onward.
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Hunter follows the path it took him ages to create and eventually lands on the doorstep of the owl house. He swings off his broom and knocks on the door. His cardinal chirps in delight and then forms back into a staff.
"Hello? I'm tired... Who is this?" Hunter jumps back and points his wand at the owl... tube thing? extending from the front of the door.
"What in the Isles– never mind, I don't have time for this! I need to see Luz, right now," Hunter hisses.
"Luz? At this time of night? I don't know..." Hooty twirls sleepily towards Hunter, who grimaces and blocks Hooty with his staff sideways.
"Look. I have information about– stop nudging me backwards! Information about a portal back to the human realm."
At this Hooty blinks, some of his exhaustion disappearing.
Hunter leans forward. "It's something that's really important to Luz, and to me. We're both going to be in trouble if you don't let me see her. Please."
Hooty looks Hunter up and down, swaying in front of his face. "FINE. Luz's asleep in the living room surrounded by a pile of research books, so I’m going to trust you for now. But if you hurt her," Hooty nudges Hunter in the chest, "or anyone else in this house," his voice dips strangely low, "you will experience pain."
Hunter swallows and nods.
"Okay! Then welcome!" Hooty's high pitched voice returns, and his exhaustion as well. "Welcome to the owl house! Over there you'll see Luz, and that's all I really want to show you right now, because it's 3am! Good night!" Hooty's head rests on the ground. His body slowly retreats back into the doorframe.
Hunter shudders. He had no idea the owl house had such... a presence? Deity? Horror? He pushes the door open to find Luz, as the owl worm described, in a pile of books on non magical phenomena in the Boiling Isles.
“Luz!” Hunter whispers loudly, and shakes her.
“Hmm? Eda, what are you doing up?”
“No, not Eda, Hunter! The- the golden guard, remember?”
Luz blinks, pushes herself up, and fumbles for a light glyph in her pocket. “Hunter? What are you doing here? It’s like 10pm–”
“It’s not 10, it’s 3. I have something urgent for you.” He rummages through his sack and hands Luz a stack of papers. Her eyes grow wide.
“An eye in the center of a metal structure? Hunter, what–”
“It’s Belos’ creation to get to the human realm.” Luz gasps and covers her mouth in the darkness. “I took as many plans as I could get that wouldn’t be missed, and I tried my best to sketch exactly what he’s building.”
“... I have so many questions, I thought you were back to fighting for Belos… so why? Why are you here, why are you giving this to me?”
“Because I want to get to the human realm as well.” Hunter’s words come out in a rush as his plan, now spoken, becomes reality. “Whether we use Belos’ construction or make our own method, I want to leave. I want an area he might not be able to exploit with magic. Of course I want to stop him, and what he’s doing, but,” his breath shudders, “we need to find some sort of escape from him. Every palisman, every witch… I... need to get away from him. He threatened to kill me and I know he’s done worse to others. Even if it’s only a temporary refuge, it’s necessary.”
Luz’s eyes shine with concern and shock in the darkness of the living room despite the light in her hand. “I had no idea Belos was doing this, Hunter, I…” She suddenly hugs him. Hunter stiffens, unused to the contact, then softens in her arms, wrapping one of his own around her. They sit like that for a while, and Hunter wonders if this is how personal contact is meant to feel. Instead of an edge tracing his neck, a warmth surrounding his body.
“We’ll do it all.” Luz leans back and grabs Hunter’s shoulders. “With your help, I know we can get to the human realm and stop Belos’ rule. Somehow, we will.”
“I… that’s good. That’s good.” Hunter leans back, placing his cardinal staff on his lap. “If anyone would know how to do this, it’s you. With your glyphs and how you used that plant against Kikimora, you’re practically the epitome of wild magic, everything Belos stands against, despite the fact that magic outdates him.”
Luz beams. “Thanks!”
Hunter’s thoughts come out in a rush at the face of Luz’s kind smile. “Really, I wondered if I was a bit selfish for coming here… I didn’t really have a concrete plan and escaping Belos seems like a fantasy to so many when he’s done so much damage here already, there are witches who can’t even hope for that–”
“Hunter, no matter what you planned, this is going to be a big help to everyone on the Isles. And it’s not selfish to want to escape someone who’s harmed you.”
Luz’s words wrap around Hunter, and he feels tears in his eyes, matching the ones he had when he left Belos’ hall. Yet this time, they are not full of panic and shock, but relief and hope. Hunter turns away from Luz’s face, deciding to nod a bit in response.
Luz notices his face and puts a hand on his cardinal while facing the ceiling. “I’m really glad you came to me. Really, Hunter, this research is more than I could have ever imagined. I have a mouse upstairs and a book full of theories, but… to be honest, I was losing a bit of hope as well.”
Hunter’s eyebrows raise, and he ignores the half-hearted voice in his head that tells him Luz might not hear the endearing sarcasm on his tongue. “You? Luz, the human, thinking into the future and not being optimistic? Have I found the wrong Luz?”
The ghost of a laugh echoes from Luz’s mouth. She softly smacks him against the arm with her palm holding the light spell. Hunter grins in the face of the pale yellow shine. “That’s what I thought as well, and that's what everyone thinks, but I really don't know how or what I'm doing. Then again, when I met you, you were all threatening,” Luz’s voice dips down, “I’m going to be snarky and try to be charismatic but you must respect my authority because guess what? I’m the Golden Guard!”
Hunter groans. “Okay, my voice doesn’t sound like that… but the attitude… yeah. I hurt a bunch of people like that, huh?”
Luz fiddles with the hem of her pajama shirt and looks towards him. “You did, but you came to me with an idea that was partly about helping the other witches of the Isles, and you realize how you hurt other witches. You’re trying. With everything that Belos did to you, that’s a lot already.”
Hunter stares at her, still trying to process everything she’s said to him tonight. Her words wrap around him like a sleeping bag after being out in the cold. Although it doesn’t stop the cold immediately, it still greatly helps to rest, and the gesture is more than he’s received in months.
Luz stares back for a moment, and understands. “It’s getting late. This has been so, so much. I want to look over these papers this instant, but we both need to sleep.” She stands up from her place on the floor, pulls a blanket out of a random closet, and gestures to the couch. “Here. You need a place to stay tonight, right?”
He nods and gratefully accepts the blanket, making his way wordlessly to the couch.
“Thanks for coming, Hunter,” Luz whispers before she heads upstairs.
Hunter lies down and his eyes shut almost immediately. His body sinks into the couch and he feels himself slip into an area of jet-black night. Instead of icebergs, however, there are two pale yellow lights. One is large in front of him like a gentle flame, and one is small in his hand. Hunter cups his light in his hand, and with a determined small smile, walks forward.