Archive of Our Own

Eda knows many things. But healing isn’t her speciality. Ah, with the Owl Beast, it wasn’t a particular concern considering her limbs fell off on the regular and… sometimes she just pulled them off. What? It was handy. Literally.

So no, healing wasn’t one of the things she was incredibly gifted in. Not that it’d matter if she had been, because she lost her magic.

And to think, it was all because of the Emperor’s Coven, one way or another. The coven drove her and her sister apart. If it wasn’t for Luz, they probably wouldn’t be talking still. Eda… she still wouldn’t know what Lily had done.

And that’s why when Luz came to the Boiling Isles, Eda picked up some books she swore she’d read on healing. And, eh, she pursued them every now and then. 

Eda didn’t like the idea of her kids being hurt, but now that she wasn’t much of a public enemy, she could probably just take them to a real healer. 

…

In most circumstances.

And this? This was not most circumstances.

The Owl House was no stranger to weird and neither were its residents, in fact, that’s what Eda loved about it most. But some things took the cake, and went back for the bakery, and those things definitely didn’t get it from King’s hour presentation on stealing a pie from a windowsill.

Hooty was perhaps the weirdest thing about the Owl House and over the years, she’d seen him do things that she’d really prefer not to think about.

But the last thing she ever expected him to do, was drag in a bloody teenager and a chatty bird.

See, most parents had to worry about their kids bringing home stray animals. Eda had to worry about her stray animals bringing home kids. 

But this was weird, even for Hooty. 

Eda all but dropped her drink as she rushed over to take the bundle she didn’t recognize. Luz was in her room and King was too small, so this wasn’t one of hers, she reassured herself. Once the panic settled, she got a clearer view.

The Golden Guard.

“Uh, Eda,” Hooty said, “I think he needs a band-aid.”

“Yeah, Hooty,” Eda replied, “I think he does too. Fetch me the First Aid kit.”

“You got it!” Eda turned swiftly when she heard the familiar retching, “Not that one!”

“Eda?” A sleepy voice mumbled, “What’s going— ON?!” 

Luz had noticed the teenager. The Golden Guard. King hopped off her shoulders with a concerned expression he pretended wasn’t there, “Is he, uh…?”

“Grab me the First Aid kit, will you?” Eda said, promptly him up on the couch, “King, can you get me a damp cloth?”

“On it,” Luz rushed off as if she didn’t move quickly enough, Hunter would perish. And honestly, Eda thought she might be right to do so.

As soon as the cloth and supplies were secured, she drowned out the frantic chirps of the cardinal Palisman in favour of cleaning the kid up, so she could actually see where she was bandaging. It… wasn’t looking good. 

There were two major gashes— which looked like he’d been impaled, narrowly missing anything vital. One on his side, and one on his shoulder. There were smaller cuts, too, littered across his torso much like the scars and discolouration she presumed would become bruises once it settled.

“The bleeding hasn’t stopped,” Eda mumbled to herself, applying pressure. The Golden Guard— Hunter, if she remembered correctly— almost winced instinctively, “Come on…”

“Eda…? Is there anything I can do?” Luz asked, anxiously fiddling with her hands. Eda knows this kind of situation isn’t great, and normally she’d try to keep Luz far out of it, but… she needs an extra set of hands, and Lily is too far away. (And possibly unwillingly.)

“Hold this one for me,” Eda replied, and Luz slowly took over his shoulder. She has two hands free for applying pressure to the wound on his side, and does so until the bleeding gradually starts to lessen.

Luz does the same, anxiety on her face. Eda starts stitching up Hunter’s wound and takes over where Luz was holding silently. Luz sits still and watches, and Eda knows she can’t ask her to leave.

“Go wash up,” Eda asked her instead as she wrapped up the area, “I’ve got it from here.”

“Okay,” Luz replied, glassy-eyed. 

Eda is soon left alone with Hunter— although King is half-awake just somewhere behind her and she can hear soft little noises as he fights his exhaustion— and finishes stitching up his shoulder, wrapping it tightly just to be safe. Hunter grumbles in his state of unconsciousness.

He’s okay. Ish. Not really, at all. 

She doesn’t know if he has any broken bones, and doesn't have the ability to find out without him telling her, so she sets out to check for other injuries. The bird nudges his hand, and Eda almost tells the bird that’s not going to work when she realizes it’s communicating with her, not Hunter.

And sure enough, his wrist is swelling up. She does what little she can and wraps it, and boy, if her hands don’t feel numb from that constant motion. Over and under, and over again.

The bird chirps softly, curling up next to his hand. Eda’s surprised the boy has a palisman, and it looks… so sad and worried.

“He’ll be okay,” Eda said, and she can’t guarantee it but her voice remains determined. Eda the Owl Lady doesn’t have teenagers perish in her living room, and neither does the new and improved Eda the Owl Harpy Lady. (Which will be what people call her, someday. You’ll see.)

Luz returned sometime later, and Eda’s first thought is that she took a long time washing up. But Luz is holding a bundle of clothes.

“I… uh… I had to guess on the size, but… I thought these might fit him,” Luz said.

“Man, I didn’t even think of that,” Eda replied. His shirt is completely torn up and practically coming off in her hands.

“Eda, is he… going to be okay?”

Eda looked at Luz, and her worried expression, and wished there was a way for her to promise her that yeah, he will be. But Eda doesn’t want to lie to Luz, first and foremost, because  knows how crushing that kind of lie can be.

“I’ll try,” Eda said, weakly, “Take King and go get some sleep, the both of you. You have school tomorrow.”

“Right. School.”

But Eda doesn’t think Luz will be sleeping much tonight. If she was in her shoes, she wouldn’t be sleeping much herself. 

It’s a good thing owls are nocturnal, Eda thought, but tonight that wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

The kid isn’t cheery and pleasant, even in his sleep— if you could call what he’s doing sleeping. Eda doesn’t know Hunter in any other context other than a brat that dangled her and Luz over the boiling sea and blackmailed them, and threatened Luz all for some stupid key.

Not to mention Lily’s rantings of his ‘special treatment’, but Lily isn’t always an accurate narrator in the stories she tells. 

Eda, however, isn’t going to judge him on that in this state. Lily had done similar, after all, and she forgave her. And Hunter…

Eda didn’t know Lily meant teen so literally until she saw him at Eclipse Lake. Somehow, though, without his big tough talk, he seems even younger. 

And Eda hates it, hates how every maternal instinct Luz has forced her to develop tears at her insides and screams in her ears. He’s a child, just barely older than Luz, and he’s lying on her couch grievously injured.

And maybe a one-off thing wouldn’t be bad. Everyone gets hurt sometimes. But the kid has so many scars. And they’re all so… similar-looking.

(And so strangely similar to his current injuries. She doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, really, but what seems like logic seems to disagree with her stomach at the moment.)

The bird chirps softly at Hunter, although he likely doesn’t hear it.

What prompted this palisman to choose him? It looks familiar in some kind of way, and she’s got a creeping suspicion she knows why. 

She knows he didn’t make it like she made hers and Luz will make hers. There’s just no way he’s secretly that good at wood carving.

He stirs in his sleep, seemingly in pain. It reminds Eda of Lilith’s nightmares from when they were kids, but with how much pain he’s already in, she wouldn’t be able to tell the reason. So, so many sources.

Eda sighed heavily, and placed a careful hand on Hunter who instinctively froze, and then leaned into the touch. So young, and following around Belos with that mindless obedience.

Chirp .

Then again, maybe not.

“Awwwwww…”

Eda nearly jumped out of her skin, “Jeez, Hooty! Stop doing that.”

“He's so cute!” Hooty gushed, “Can we keep him?”

“He’s not a pet,” Eda said, lowering her voice slightly for their unconscious guest. 

“But I found him and he’s hurt . He needs us,” Hooty argued.

Eda spared a glance at Hunter, and shoved down the part of her that said Hooty was right and did her best to replace it with the rational part that knew The Golden Guard was a threat.

But… kind of hard to think of him as a threat when he looks so scared and… small, and young.

“Unc… le… ple…” He mumbled. Eda was about to write it off as nonsense and sleep gibberish, but it continued, “Pl…ease…”

Her stomach sank. Of all the things she wanted to hear him say, those words and that sentence were near the bottom, right next to ‘I have Luz and King’ and ‘Emperor Belos wears cargo shorts’.

“Ple… please,” He continued, “Unc—le…”

His stirring seemed more unrestful. And look at that— you could learn a lot from this situation. Eda was learning that maternal instincts are a dangerous thing, as she resisted the urge to cradle him like a baby.

But, she did inch closer, and she did carefully rubbing circles on his back, just missing his wounds. He’s so young for a coven leader. Lily was… so overwhelmed, when she left.

Hunter calmed down slightly, his breathing a little easier, and hers too.

It’s going to be a long night. But owls are nocturnal, and in a situation like this, that doesn’t matter anyway. Eda is not truly an owl, but tonight she is just as awake as any may be.

“Be…los, please…” 

Eda’s suspicions are all but directly confirmed, and there’s a fury lighting up in her. And a deep, deep sadness— because she looks at him and wonders why, if she’s correct, did no one care? 

Maybe Luz was right to call him a bad but sad boy. Maybe bad was never even close to a choice. Eda takes a deep breath, and knows she’s oh-so close to hoarding children like she dreamed of doing with raccoons.

It’s not what she expected. But things rarely ever are.

Hunter stirs in and out of consciousness throughout the night, but he doesn’t seem coherent. He’s fine company when he’s not trying to kill her, she finds.

(Was that ever his intention? Was he some brat passing off his chores to them, or some kid who didn’t want to hurt the selkidomus?

And who keeps a Palisman— which Eda has heard Belos eats for breakfast instead of something normal, like, griffin eggs or… what’s that human cake breakfast? Eda misses that.)

“You know,” Eda mused, “I didn’t really need any more reasons to dislike Belos.”

The bird chirped in agreement. 

“Fl…ap…jack…” Hunter mumbled, “R…un…”

“Flapjack?” Eda raised an eyebrow, searching her head for the term, “What’s a flapjack?”

Wasn’t that the cake breakfast she was thinking of? 

The bird chirped at her.

“ You’re a flapjack?”

Chirp .

“I guess that answers why Belos eats Palisman, the freak,” Eda said. Not the kind of Flapjack she would eat, personally, but hey— don’t knock it till you try it, right? (Actually, she was definitely going to knock it before she tried it.)

“He’s not a freak,” A slightly exhausted voice replied. Eda turned her head.

“Blondie,” She said, “We’ve really gotta stop meeting like this, eh?”

“You mean— hhgh— you kidnapping me?” He tried to hoist himself into a more… sitting up position, but even from here Eda could see his arms shaking. They weren’t ready to do… anything.

“Hey, take it easy. You’ll pop your stitches,” Eda said, ignoring his retort for some friendly mother-ing.

Flapjack landed on his shoulder and tweeted something.

“I’m fine,” He grumbled, and she wasn’t sure if it was a response to her or the bird. His body seemed to disagree with him, as he nearly fell off the couch. Luckily, Eda had great reflexes. Probably the Grudgby.

“Easy now,” Eda helped prop him up in a sitting position.

“I need to— leave,” Hunter said, as if he was in any condition to do so, “I need to do something.”

“Kid, you’re barely even conscious,” Eda pointed out, “At least give it more than a couple hours after your near-death experience to try and crawl— literally— back to the coven.”

“I need to,” He repeated, a faraway look in his eye. 

“Okay, sure ,” Eda resigned. There was a folded blanket Luz left with the clothes— and how had it not occurred to her to put a blanket on the kid yet? She really hadn’t been prepared— and she yanked it out from under the pile and all but threw it at the kid, “Go to sleep.”

“What?” He mumbled.

“Sleep,” Eda said, “Those eye bags are making me tired, and unlike your determination, your body is in no shape to be travelling.”

“I’ve had worse,” He insisted, mumbling what she assumed was supposed to be ‘I’m fine’ but barely resembled words. Ah, being right all the time sucked.

Flapjack chirped in agreement, “See? Even your Palisman agrees with me. Now, get some sleep before I have Hooty sing you a lullaby.”

Eda (almost) always knew the coven system was terrible, but being right about something doesn’t mean being prepared to see just how bad it is. 

And maybe the Golden Guard is the perfect example of how corrupt it is, how it takes a kid and chews them up and spits out some brainwashed soldier. It’s hard for her to fully imagine what Belos has put this kid through.

From the looks of him, she’ll have time.

“…okay,” Hunter agreed, and she suspects it’s only because he’s having such difficulty keeping his eyes open.

It’s a start.