Chapter Text
Pushing through the door of the owl house, faster than his palisman, Flapjack could follow, who was tweeting worrisome sounds in the faded background, Hunter ran. He had to.
Why hadn’t he known. It was obvious now looking back, at the way he was treated. Trees pass in a blur, Hunter while running unbuckles the golden armor leaving it to drop along the forest floor. Nothing more than a toy, a puppet, a…Grimwalker.
The same questions repeating over and over and over never ending, painful and hurting to his head. Why hadn’t he seen it! He couldn’t breathe.
The air was cold and burned as he tried to breath it in. His vision faded as he ran. Where? That never really came to mind.
The panic and adrenaline had an iron grip over his thoughts, making sure that his brain, or whatever he had to replace one, was full of painful thoughts all while keeping his limbs in a constant state of moving.
No no, it was a mistake, a human trick, that has to be it. His uncle wouldn’t do that to him, his uncle loved him, he had to.
His body was shaking, and as his energy ran out, he fearfully slumped against a tree, clutching his knees to his chest with one hand, his other hand anxiously moving through his hair, pulling on it in a painful manner if he could feel it if it weren’t for the panic and exhaustion numbing his physical pains. The winds blew coldly against his skin but that did not free him from his mind.
It was a trick. It was a trick. It was a trick. His uncle loved him. He had to have loved him.
Belos gave him all those chances and belongings, he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t care about him, right? The memory of Belos taunting him with his death came up like a punch to the face, “what a shame” Belos had said with that mocking smirk on his face. As if he was already preparing to make a new Grimwalker to replace him.
His belongings, were they past Grimwalker’s belongings too? The ones that Belos had tossed away? When Belos introduced him to his “new room” how many times had he had done that before? Was it all a script?
Belos knew all along, he knew, he always knew.
Hunter started muttering under his breath as the reality of his life was beginning to take hold, “no no nonononono…please no please PLEASE”. Gripping his hair with both hands tighter, pulling for some physical pain to try and cancel out the emotional. Pleading to no one in particular, maybe Belos, maybe the universe, maybe to anyone who could hear his sobs.
“I can’t I can’t I can’t PLEASE NO PLEASE-” Hunter is choking on his own words as he struggles for air from his own cries. Repeating those same pleas for the many things he wished weren’t true. Pleas for him to have never have known the truth, pleas for Belos to be his kind and loving uncle whom he had thought he had knew, pleas for it all to just be another one of his nightmares, pleas to return to normal life, pleas for him to just not be in this situation he is in right now.
Tears stung as they rolled down his cheeks, burning and eroding his skin.
-
Throughout all the panic, sorrow, running, and fighting his body was exhausted, but he didn’t have any time to rest. Rest was an expenditure, one that he did not have. How long had he been sitting here? It was still night but it was so hard to think.
By this time, his brain was so overthought and tired that his thoughts were silent. Like a switch had turned on stopping the thoughts. He had felt…numb.
He couldn’t feel the soreness of his head from the pulling, nor the aching in his legs from running, not even the burning in his lungs from gasping for air. His eyes laid staring at the floor, watching the grass sway in the wind, mindlessly staring. He needed to move.
He needed to get out, away, somewhere.
His body was so heavy to pick up, having to cling to the tree he was sitting by for support. His legs were like noodles underneath. He trudged one foot in front of the other, and slowly started making his way deeper into the woods.
At least, he would have, if he didn’t immediately misplace his steps from the darkness and tumble down a cliff that was lengthy enough to make him pass out.
-
There was the sound of shifting. Noting it only half-heartedly in the back of his brain. He was so tired. He was in so much pain.
He wanted to go home, underneath his sheets, playing with flapjack, with the safety of personalized items around him.
Shifting. There was Shifting. Talking. Someone is here.
Someone is here! Hunter’s eyes shot open, blearily trying to take in sight of who was there, but immediately closes them as the brightest light he had ever seen gets shown into his eyes. With sealed eyes he tries to get up to run, key word is “tries”, immediately as he tries to get up the world is sprung in chaos, he doesn’t know where he is but it feels like at sea.
His stability is so off that it must be some kind of spell. Everything feels as if it's swaying back and forth, spinning non-stop, he feels sick and cups his mouth with his hand trying to suppress the worst. The people are getting closer, their noises of whoever they are, are approaching. He can’t make out the sounds of who they are but that does not matter, anyone could recognize him, they might turn him in, or they might give out his location, or was it someone more direct?
Was it Belos? Was it the Scouts?
Hunter balls up some of the earth underneath his hand and throws it in the direction of the sounds. He peaks open one of his eyes again, only to learn his lesson a second time and get almost blinded. He feels weight on his legs and kicks like his life depended on it, because most likely it did. Only to get his arms restrained along with his feet.
“this ki….” words start forming just barely from the previously incoherent sounds. “ ….hould….et him..” Even if he could barely understand what was being said, that didn’t stop the panic that was starting to rush his system.
“no…please,” Hunter says weakly, his voice sounding more hoarse than he thought it would be. “don’t kill me”. He feels his body being lifted, and as much as he tries to struggle, whoever is carrying him is firm and leaves him no room for escape, that or because his body is so drained that we can’t do anything useful.
But being lifted did NOT help his stomach at all and the dizziness got too much to handle, resulting in him unfurling the contents of his stomach on top of the stranger, which to be fair was only stomach acid as he had not eaten since yesterday morning. The audible disgusted reaction can be heard from below, which if this were not such a dire situation Hunter would have thought it was funny.
However, the capturer kept moving, at quite a fast pace Hunter had now noticed from the spiraling of his brain.
-
Hunter felt the soft cushions underneath his body as the stranger laid him down. Kicking and struggling with weak force against his restraints, he shouts or at least tries to “let. me. Out.”
The stranger doesn’t respond or maybe he does, it is so hard to tell what is going on, all the sounds are muddled and difficult to understand, if he opens his eyes he bets he would be blinded again, and the world is spinning at an unfathomable rate.
He stays still to try and focus on what the stranger is talking about, no, two strangers. One of them has a deeper voice than the other, he can tell that much. But before he can catch their conversation one of them is up close to his ear, trying to talk to him. “....eed to…ink…is”.
“What?” Hunter replies, “What are you saying?” “....open yo…r...eyes” the stranger tries again.
“No. Stop. Let me go.”
“....it….kay” It’s okay? Yeah right. How stupid do they think he is? Stupid enough to believe Belos’s lies…. No. Not the time to think about that.
What are they going to do if he does open his eyes? Blind him? Maybe take an eye or two? Whatever, Just add it to the list of scars and fractures from training.
Hunter peeps open only one of his eyes a third time and prepares for the blinding light to hit once again. However, the light doesn’t come. Instead Hunter sees two blurry figures, some type of purplish blob, an amalgamation probably, and the person talking to him, they have mint hair and are holding out some sort of cup.
It's hard to focus on any other details, it's blurry. Whoever it is puts the drink up to Hunter’s mouth but he immediately spits it out. “You are NOT going to poison me!” Just then the amalgamation snatches the cup from the mint haired stranger, stepping forward and leaning down to clutch Hunter’s face by the chin.
Using another hand to open Hunter’s mouth and force the concoction into his throat. Hunter is forced to swallow in order to avoid being drowned out by drink. But as soon as the drink stops, he bites down on the hand that is forcing his mouth open, which appears to be more physical than he first thought as the hand didn’t collapse under the bite like abomination goo.
The hand retracted and a resounding yelp can be heard which did give Hunter a bit of a smirk.
The “not-abomination” walked out of whatever low enclosure they were in but the other mint haired stranger stayed behind, simply supposedly staring at Hunter, he couldn't really tell.
“..uo…eed to…..est….please” When are they going to get the message that they are incomprehensible? There is a blur of red in his vision then light pressure on his forehead, it tingles and sort of tickles. The red reminds him of Flapjack, if only he didn’t run off so far without them.
Thoughts about how his cardinal friend is doing flood his mind. Are they somewhere safe? What if they had gotten lost? Was Flapjack looking for him?
Tears form on the rims of his eyes, daring to fall and burn his cheeks again. As these thoughts continue on, Hunter does not even realize that his eyes had begun to close. And rather quickly Hunter drifts into a soft deep sleep.
-
His head had seen better days but at least he wasn’t dead. The last few things he remembered were….strangers…throwing up…..breakdown…cliff?....and..belos. Belos, he’d rather not remember that. But he was sure he was awake now, so why was it still so dark?
Hunter sat up slowly, palming at the area blindly around him, feeling both the area around as well as his own bodily aches, and man did his body hate him right now.
There was a fluttering and tickling on his face right where his eyes were, and as the foreign object left his face as he sat up, he could see again. Loud tweeting came from atop his head and immediately Hunter knew who it was. “FLAPJACK!” Hunter cups his hands for Flapjack to land and Flapjack does accordingly. He basically squishes his palisman from sheer force and love, overwhelming relief washing over Hunter as his best friend was safe and here with him.
Flapjack tweets a bunch of rapid affectionate noises, returning the feelings of relief and joy that Hunter is safe and with him as well.
“Flapjack- help me. These restraints-” Hunter looks down at his hands and feet, with his vision much more usable this time, more clear, and notices some kind of tacky blanket covering his body. If they were going to bag him and take him back surely they could have used a more dignifying package? Whatever, he had to get out of here before whoever they were came back.
Throwing the sheets off his body by squirming out of them, he holds up his wrists to Flapjack.
Looking at his own wrists he sees that the restraints are abomination based and grimaces as he looks at FlapJack. “Come on….ok I know it's disgusting but we don't really have much of a choice here-” Flapjack tweets a response and the sarcasm in their voice could be heard by anyone, palisman owner or not. “ME BITE IT? NO-”
Remembering that those strangers could be nearby Hunter corrects himself and lowers his voice to shout whisper at Flapjack. “I’m not sure what would happen if I were to ingest this stuff, this is too much.” Flapjack simply sits on Hunter’s head, puffing out his chest and getting comfortable in the bed head that Hunter has created. “I am not a nest you- you-.... HEY! We NEED to get out of here. Now.”
Flapjack tweets something or other but it is clear that they are not helping so Hunter ignores whatever Flapjack is spouting and starts trying to scoot out of….a tent?
Now that he is getting a good look around, scouting past and further on his surroundings in case those people show up, he assumed that he was in some sort of cage at least, perhaps even a cart to transport him back, or even just a straight up grave. But no, he was in a tent, previously wrapped up in a blanket. He had to stay focused, he continued to scoot out of the “imprisonment”, slowly but surely making it out of the tent and being able to roughly get up standing and being able to hop faster away from wherever he was.
Flapjack was being annoying though, flapping in his face, trying to stop him from leaving. When that didn’t work they started pulling on the back of his shirt, flapping furiously. “Flapjack! No! We aren’t playing right now! Let go!” Hunter falls flat on his butt with a resounding thud, causing a rather sore spot in which he winces in pain.
“Flapjack!” Hunter shouts in annoyance.
“What is going on here?” A voice comes out from behind. Hunter recognizes it almost immediately; it would be embarrassing if he didn’t.
Hunter rapidly turns his head to face the two witches behind him. Coven leaders Darius and Raine.
As far as Hunter was concerned, Hunter was dead.