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He didn't have a body to bury.
Everything had happened so fast, and so much of it was a blur. But one scene still vividly played on repeat in his head. He'd only been able to watch on helplessly, a prisoner of his own mind as Belos had crushed his little body between his slimy fingers. The crunch of soft palistrom wood, the blisters that formed on his- on the monster's hand.
Glowing blue and glowing green. Hunter opened his eyes, finally in control of himself again, but all the light around them had faded. A ghost of a tiny weight on his chest was all that remained, and that was fading too.
-
Flap had come to him at a turning point in his life. Nothing was making sense anymore. Cognitive dissonance, that’s what it was. The bird was made of wild magic, of course it was dangerous to keep him around. But ever since that night in his room, the thing hadn’t stopped following him around. And the longer this went on, the more he stopped being annoyed by it.
The water that pounded down on his skull screaming this was bad had slowly drained to a trickle. But a constant dripping was just as tortuous in its own way. Every time he scritched at the bird's... at Flapjack's little crest of head feathers or snuck a handful of bread crumbs from his lunch to feed him, he could feel a part of him growing increasingly apathetic. His conviction for his uncle and the Titan's will was forced to play a constant tug of war.
The first time Flapjack had told Hunter he loved him, he'd nearly cried. After his near failure at eclipse lake, he'd been desperate to continually prove himself to Belos, and he'd been running himself ragged in the process. Rumors had been whispered carefully behind silver masks of a rebellion, and Hunter had been spending every spare moment trying to find out more. In the early hours of the morning, several energy potions into a manic study session, Flapjack still hadn't ceased tugging on his hair in a vain attempt to get him to rest. At his wits end, Hunter had snapped at him, asking why he was continuing to bother him if he clearly wasn't planning on sleeping. The bird looked sad, and tweeted back a simple phrase.
Because I love you.
And Hunter had just sat there and stared at him with misty eyes, dumbfounded. "Oh."
-
He had once been a mighty mountain. He stood confident and tall behind his golden exterior. Those beneath him knew not to underestimate his power.
But the river behind his eyes cut through his interior. Not through a natural disaster, that might fracture the strata of his bones, but a slow, steady flow. He had once mistaken it for something good: his entire purpose ran through him, and once a river chooses its course it does not stray from the path it has already cut. Any water that flows down the mountain's peak will fall into the familiar grooves as a canyon is etched over an entire lifetime.
But now that he'd run dry, he was left with a desolate wasteland, his mighty peaks reduced to gravel beneath his feet. He had no purpose anymore.
Yet despite it all, Flapjack had been there. When he'd cried himself to sleep that first night at Hexside, Flap had cuddled into his neck, trilling gently. When he'd been adjusting to the strangeness that was the human realm, trying desperately to leave his previous life behind him, he'd been the one thing that stayed the same.
It didn't seem right that while everyone was so focused on returning home, he'd felt the most content he'd ever been. Purpose felt like it might begin to flow through him again, but it was different now. He wasn't living for anyone's sake now, but for his own. And maybe Flapjack's too. Since that first night, he'd made sure to always tell him he loved him back.
But nothing could ever stay the same in his life, could it? As soon as he felt like he finally had someone he could always turn to, that had to be ripped away too. As the smell of the air changed from damp and chilly to smoky and dry, as he crossed the precipice separating the two phases of his life, he imagined feeling the human rain on his skin as he walked through once again.
He thought he was being strong, as he'd walked confidently forward. But a downpour in a desert won't have anything to do but flood.
Flapjack was gone.
So he collapsed to his knees, and cried.