Work Text:
Hunter ran the tines of the rake against the leaves a final time and pulled them into the large pile he’d slowly been working on for the last hour. Planting the rake beside him, he wiped the sweat that had started to form on his brow, despite the November chill. Halloween had come and gone, and he had to admit, it was about as fun as Luz had promised them it would be.
Fluttering from the now empty branches of a nearby tree, Flapjack tweeted and chirped at Hunter as he landed on the grimwalker’s shoulder.
“Hey Flap.” Affectionately stroking the palisman’s crest, the bird nuzzled into the warm touch. The cardinal tweeted curiously and Hunter heavily sighed as his eyes turned down. “I dunno, probably try working on a new door again with Luz.” His head perked up as Flapjack tweeted again. “Well, yeah, we’ll talk to the others about it too, but me and her actually have experience with it and… well, we don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. Not after the last disaster.”
Hunter scratched the back of his neck and kicked at some of the leaves in frustration, remembering how all their hard work had gone up in flames, both figuratively and very literally. The one thing he was thankful for was how Luz was seemingly of the same mind as him when it came to how to approach their next attempt at recreating the door.
Hunter was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of two cheering voices. Looking behind him, he saw Gus and Vee laughing as they charged towards him. Specifically the pile of leaves he’d built up.
“Don’t you da-” Hunter’s words went unfinished as the two leapt up and crashed into the pile, laughing hysterically as the brown, orange and red leaves fell in a autumnal shower.
The illusionist witch and basilisk threw handfuls of the leaves at the other, eventually escalating into rolling over each other back and forth in the pile. Hunter sighed at the sight and simply let the rake drop to the floor.
“You two can clean up your own mess!” He called behind him as he walked back into the house, the sound of their renewed laughter being cut off as he shut the door.
“Having trouble with your roommate Hunter?” Camila chuckled as the boy groaned slightly.
Despite his annoyance, Hunter couldn’t help but smirk. “He’s fine. Just wish I knew that all my hard work would just result in that.” Nodding his head towards the window, where Gus and Vee could still be seen kicking up the leaves at each other.
Camila chuckled as well at the sight and patted Hunter’s head. “Thank you for the help Hunter. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem ma’am, I’m happy to help.” Hunter smiled bashfully at the simple praise and thanks.
“Camila.” Tapping Hunter’s forehead, Camila’s tone became slightly more direct. “You’ve been here long enough to know that by now.” Her tone softened again. “Luz!” Calling to the girl who was lost scribbling away in a notebook on the couch waved at her mother to let her know she was listening. “I’m going out for a little while, I’ll be back soon. Don’t let them ruin their appetite on snacks.” Luz’s hand shifted to a thumbs-up in acknowledgement. “And you better not be ruining your own appetite over there young lady!”
Luz’s hand froze before it was pulled back out of view, and Luz shifted her head off the arm rest to hide herself from her mother’s gaze.
With a sigh, Camila pinched the bridge of her nose. “Hunter, don’t let her stuff herself into a candy coma while I’m gone.”
Nodding with an amused smile at the thought, Hunter waved at the Noceda matriarch as she left the house. Briefly catching the muffled sound of her talking to Gus and Vee as he stepped around the couch to fully look at Luz. As Camila had accurately predicted, while Luz was using one hand to write in her notebook more ideas regarding the door, the other hand was unwrapping a bowl full of the leftover candy from the holiday that she was slowly eating through.
Placing his hands on the back and armrest of the couch, Hunter leaned over Luz as she purposefully ignored him. Hunter eventually snickered as she shamelessly grabbed another piece of candy, finally making her lean back to look up at him.
“Don’t you judge me.” Hunter imagined the words would have been far more effective if she wasn’t speaking through a mouthful of nougat.
“How are you still eating this stuff? I need to take a break after three.” Grabbing one of the candies himself, Hunter unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth and hummed at the caramel.
“That’s because I’m pretty sure you’ve grown up surviving on a diet of military rations, saltine crackers and a bad mood.” Despite Luz’s words, the smirk she had as she spoke, that she pretended to hide behind her notebook, made Hunter laugh.
“Well, I still eat saltines occasionally. But the meals have definitely gotten better.” Leaning on his elbow, Hunter’s face hung much closer to Luz’s as he pushed her notebook out of the way.
Humming at the closeness, Luz reached up to cup the boy’s cheek. “And what about the bad mood?”
“You tell me…” Hunter’s voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned closer.
“I think my bad but sad boy is a lot less bad and a lot less sad these days.” Luz ran her hand through Hunter’s hair and he closed his eyes as he simply enjoyed the sensation.
Dropping down to kneel beside the arm rest, Hunter peered down at Luz. “So, what are you working on?”
With a sigh, Luz turned her attention back to the book and lazily flipped back and forth through it. “I’ve been trying to think of something to do with the door, but so far, nothing.” Slapping the book, as if it would somehow help make the ideas she wrote down more viable. “I think I officially hit rock bottom of ideas when I started sketching Luzura helping us make a door.” Her weak chuckles just barely hid her sad tone.
“You mean from Ruler’s Reach?” Slowly leaning forward, Hunter grabbed the book and plucked it from Luz who didn’t even bother trying to hold onto it.
“Yeah, her and the prince, just appearing, and helping us get back. I also drew some Azura sketches. I’m just passing time at this point.” She waved off the book as Hunter’s eyes wandered over the pages.
The sketches varied from crude stick figure drawings to more detailed drawings. Closing the book, Hunter stood and joined Luz on the couch. As he sat back, he jolted at the feeling of something briefly poking into his back.
Grabbing at the source of the sensation, he pulled a small plastic spider from behind one of the couch cushions. “How many of these did you buy?” Flicking the plastic spider to the table, Luz simply shrugged at the boy. “I don’t know why you put them there, but I’m still finding some in my clothes.” This seemed to eased Luz’s dour mood as she smirked and snickered at Hunter’s look of annoyance.
“Come on, Luz, you’ve kept yourself cooped up too much.” Luz let out a tired sigh as she grabbed back the notebook and held it to her chest as she leaned against the arm rest. “You go to school, come home, and then stay inside the rest of the day.”
“I don’t need to go out, I need to figure something out for the door.” Hunter’s eyes fell as he realized that the determination she had before had fallen into tired exhaustion.
“Well, you can probably figure something out for the door while we go out into town. What do you say?” Seeing Luz tighten her grip on the book, Hunter leaned over and tugged it down. “Luz, I know better than anyone that being stuck somewhere everyday isn’t good for you. Trust me, some fresh air will help.”
Luz refused to meet his eyes, but Hunter could tell that she was considering his words. With an overly dramatic sigh she simply nodded and rolled off the couch and headed through the house to dress more appropriately for the cold outside.
Hunter simply waited for Luz at the door until she came running down, using him as a means to stop her momentum by crashing into him with a hug, and a quiet thanks. As the two stepped outside, Luz called to the two still playing in the ever-shrinking pile of leaves.
“Gus! Vee! Amity and Willow have already gone out to town. Use the spare keys inside to lock up when you go back in.” The two nodded at Luz as she and Hunter walked down the sidewalk towards the path that would lead them into town.
Hunter had learned a decent amount about the actual history of the town through his occasional visits to the library, but he enjoyed hearing Luz’s own accounts of where she’d grown up. The places that seemed insignificant that she could point out and tell him a hundred different stories about. They visited Luz’s favorite places in order to get more snacks to occupy them as they walked, and Hunter knew that neither of them would be able to manage the meal that Camila would cook later.
Luz recalled the various different halloweens she had experienced throughout her life, the costumes she went through, and how she’d collect so much candy that she wouldn’t even be able to carry the bag with how heavy it got.
“One year the bag actually split open, candy everywhere!” Hunter couldn’t help but chuckle at how she re-enacted the story, expressing herself with exaggerated movements as she often did.
Luz allowed herself a chuckle of her own, the troubles in her mind from before slowly fading to the back of her thoughts. Eventually the two came to a stop beside a random building’s wall, and Luz felt the need to take a break, the overload of food already making her tired.
Stopping with her, Hunter sat beside her as they watched the people in the small town pass them by, whether by car or bike or on foot. As Luz and Hunter rested against the wall, Flapjack rested in Hunter’s hair and Luz cooed at the cardinal as she reached up to stroke it. Hunter let out a small hum as her fingers traced through his hair as she caressed Flapjack’s feathers.
“Are you thinking of growing it out again?” Luz’s voice pulled Hunter from the dull calm she’d lulled him into and he hummed as he turned to her.
“Oh, you mean my hair.” As he fully processed her words, he shrugged. “I dunno, maybe. It kind of reminds me of Belos and Caleb.” Hunter gritted his teeth and pressed his lips into a line at his own slip up.
Luz’s hand froze in his hair, and Hunter saw her face fall as she recalled their time going through Belos’ mind, and he couldn’t blame her. Despite taking her out of the house specifically to help her relax, Hunter internally chastised himself for bringing up such bad memories.
After a long pause, Luz spoke again. “I never thought you did.” As Hunter hummed curiously at her, Luz chuckled at her own mind, muddling the words and making them vague. “I mean, I never thought you looked like Belos, or Caleb. I mean, it’s the same color, and you used to have the same bags under your eyes as Belos.” As her tone became more light-hearted, she nudged Hunter with an elbow and he laughed with her. “But aside from that I never thought you were like them. You… you were just Hunter, to me.”
“HAPPY HALLOWEEN!” Before either of them could process the shout, a loud splattering noise hit right beside Hunter’s head.
The next instant, Luz and Hunter found themselves covered in the sticky orange insides of a smashed pumpkin, their clothes and hair dotted with pumpkin seeds. A chorus of raucous laughter echoed from a car they hadn’t noticed as it peeled off.
Hunter immediately jumped to his feet glaring at the teens in the car that pointed at the two as they rounded the corner. His anger quickly simmered as Luz stood with him too and held her hands against him to stop him from doing anything stupid. Scoffing at the long-gone teens, Hunter relaxed and Luz pulled her hands away as the two looked down at themselves.
“Is every teen in this town that isn’t you like that?” With a disgusted grunt, Hunter wiped away at the pumpkin innards and flicked them to the ground when they stuck to him.
“No, just them.” Attempting to pick the seeds from her hair, Luz glared at the corner that the car had turned down. “They did the same thing last year too, grabbing the jack-o-lanterns from houses and then throwing them against buildings for the next few weeks.”
“They don’t have anything better to do?” Hunter grimaced as he pulled strings of pumpkin from his arms, but was glad for Flapjack as the palisman simply pecked the seeds out of his hair and ate them.
“Apparently not. Come on. I know a place where we can wash off most of this.” With a wave, Luz walked back from where they had come from and crossed the street, quickly heading towards the woods that surrounded Gravesfield.
Hunter continued picking away the bits that clung to him, though it seemed fruitless as, with each string he pulled away, he found three more on a different part of his body. Briefly attempting to forget the mess, Hunter let his eyes wander through the woods. In the distance he could hear childish laughter, though he couldn’t see the source.
“These woods connect to an old park and playground my mom used to take me to when I was young. I used to come here all the time, she didn’t like it but I just couldn’t help myself.” As Luz leapt over a log and slid under a half fallen tree, Hunter followed suit.
“It seems like your kind of place.” A soft smile grew on Hunter’s face as he took in the scenery.
It was a far cry from the wilderness of the Boiling Isles, far less howling beast, and even less plants trying to kill him. Hunter was certain it looked even better when the trees had fully grown out their green leaves, but the way the empty branches swayed in the breeze and clicked against each other gave it a sort of haunting beauty.
“Here it is!” With a proud exclamation, Luz held her hands out towards a small stream that ran through the deep part of the woods they’d gotten too.
Crouching down, Luz took a deep breath before dunking her head into the stream and ran her hands through her hair, scrubbing out the pumpkin mess that had clung to her. Hunter could see her fingers catch and tug on knots in her hair and particularly stuck bits of pumpkin, but eventually she resurfaced and took a deep breath.
“Good as new. Your turn.” Luz’s grown out hair slipped down and covered her eyes with a wet splat, making her recoil and making Hunter laugh.
Peeling the hair away from Luz’s eyes, Hunter tucked her hair behind her ears and the two shared a smile. Leaning down, Hunter dunked his head into the stream as well, attempting to scrub what remained of the pieces of pumpkin that Flapjack hadn’t eaten.
After pulling his head out, Hunter smirked at Luz and ran a hand through his own recently cut hair, his teasing gesture made her poke her tongue out at him which quickly devolved into another series of chuckles.
The two soon fell into pleasant silence, even with nothing left to do besides the stream, neither found a reason or felt a need to rise to their feet and return to the house. Hunter quickly shifted to sit against a tree and Luz flipped her notebook open once again, though her expression was far calmer than before as she read through the notes again.
Hunter slowly let his eyelids shut and his body completely relax. It was still a relatively new feeling, being able to relax in the way he recently had. He was so used to the idea that, at any moment after he shut his eyes, for any reason, his uncle could wake him to send him on some new mission, or his sleep would be found interrupted by the sun rising far too soon.
But not anymore.
He wasn’t the Golden Guard anymore, he wasn’t in the Castle anymore, and he could relax whenever he wanted to. Of course, he rarely ever did, still preferring to occupy himself with something to keep him busy, but at least he was starting to sleep better.
He peeked out from his lidded eyes slightly over their surroundings, there was barely any noise to disturb them since they’d left the town so far behind, aside from the bird calls, and the stream beside them, Luz shifting through the pages of her notebook was the only sound around.
“When did you find this place?” Finally deciding to break the silence, Hunter let his eye fall back on Luz who perked up at the sound of his voice.
“Back when I was a kid. I… wasn’t the most popular girl in school, and one day I just… ran. I ran out of town as fast as my little legs could take me, and I found this place.” A wistful smile spread on her lips. “It sort of became my home away from home when… when home became too much.” Hunter sat up and leaned towards Luz, as she stared off into nothing in particular in the distance. “I always went back home after a few hours but… it was nice. To have a place that was my own, you know? This is actually where I thought up a lot of my ideas for ‘Luzura’ and her adventures.” She blinked, and the thousand yard stare disappeared as she glanced around the woods, a nostalgic gleam in her eyes as she recalled the little moments in her childhood. Her eyes met Hunter’s and a look of guilt briefly flashed in her eyes as she shrank. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about that sort of thing, you were stuck in a castle so it sort of feels like I’m rubbing it in.” She nervously rubbed her arm but paused as she heard Hunter chuckle.
“I um- I actually do understand what you mean.” Hunter saw the surprise on Luz’s face, which only made him chuckle more. “There was a little space in the castle I used to go to when I was younger, this dusty little corner in the library.” As Hunter spoke, Luz shuffled in place, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit on the grass. “Before I did my basic training I’d go there as often as I could and just- well I’d just read, read as many books as I could find.”
Luz’s brows furrowed with worry as she saw the nostalgic smile Hunter had fell away into a defeated, somber look.
“I… I also used to hide there when Belos had his episodes. When he’d become that- that thing.” Luz shuffled closer to Hunter and placed her hand over his, stroking her thumb over his fingers and he gripped her hand in his, seeking comfort from the terrible memories. “I… one day he found me there.” Luz’s grip on Hunter’s hand tightened as she felt a pit grow in her stomach from where his story was going. “I remember him yelling- well, it was more like he was roaring, my name. I had started the task of giving him palismen- but we hadn’t gotten any new ones in and I was so-!”
Hunter’s words died in his throat as Luz grabbed his cheek and the back of his head and pulled him down into the crook of her neck in a tight embrace. She gently ran her hands up and down his back and through his hair, and winced as she felt tears run down her shoulder, as he silently wept, without a sob to disturb the silence of the woods.
Slowly Luz felt the dampness cease as Hunter simply relaxed into her, and she leaned back against the tree, finding the cold bark against her back strangely comfortable. As Hunter leaned on her shoulder, she leaned against his head and opened her notebook again, flipping through to one of the blank pages.
Looking out over the woods they sat in, she felt a stirring warmth in her chest and a smile fighting its way onto her face. Checking her pockets, she eventually found a pencil tucked away, so overused, sharpened over and over, that it had become shorter than one of her fingers.
Holding her thumb out in front of her, she slowly began sketching away on the page. She could feel Hunter stir on her shoulder as she began to sketch out the tree that surrounded them. Dead branches, empty of any limbs, but unlike the trees around them, the ones in the book stretched upward, into the sky, impossibly tall, and the bark slowly peeled away from where it cracked.
Flapjack fluttered back to the two, resting in Hunter’s hair and leaning against Luz’s face, staring down at the drawing with as much curiosity as Hunter did. Floating, serpentine birds weaved their way through the branches of the enormous trees and Luz couldn’t help but smirk as Hunter adjusted himself to sit up and get a better look at what she was drawing.
“It’s just a little idea I had for Ruler’s Reach that me and King never got around to.” She whispered the words to Hunter who briefly glanced at her before returning his gaze to the drawing, and Luz sketched in two small figures sitting together at the base of one of the trees, Luzura and the Prince.
“Didn’t Luzura die in that?” Hunter narrowed his eyes at the two figures as Luz chuckled.
“This is from the original draft, before King took it over. I’m glad I can share it with someone else.” Holding up the sketch in front of her, Luz glanced back and forth between it and the woods before pulling it back to keep adding little details.
“Alright then, what are they doing?” Hunter’s voice was still weak, but as he sat up fully, Luz found their positions switched, now with her leaning against his chest as he rested his head on hers.
“They’re… running.” As ideas for the story and characters came to her, Luz held up the notebook higher to point out how she saw the pieces falling into place on the page. “They’ve both messed up, and they’ve hurt their friends. They feel like they’re separated, but what they don’t know is that their friends are in the same woods as them, its just that neither group knows where the other is.”
“Wouldn’t they run into each other eventually?” Luz smiled, enjoying having an actual fan of the book to bounce ideas off of.
“That’s the thing, the woods are bigger than they seem. Not to mention that it gets colder the further in they go. So it becomes harder for them to find each other.” As Luz spoke, she added small outlines of white building up on the branches, and dots of snow into the picture.
“Sounds like you’ve put them in a tough spot, I thought you liked these characters?” Luz didn’t need to see Hunter’s smirk to feel it in his words and nudged him with an elbow.
“I do. But sometimes it’s nice to see characters struggle, because then you get to feel the same relief as them when they overcome it.” She felt the hum that vibrated through Hunter’s chest in her ear and felt him nod against her still damp hair. “And these two aren’t struggling as much as they would be alone. Because they have each other.” Luz smiled down at the two characters as she doodled them in thicker clothing and sharing a scarf and blanket to ward off the cold of the magical fantasy forest.
Eventually, Luz found her pencil slowing down against the picture as the ideas for what she wanted on the page began to finally take form.
When she finally pulled her eyes away from the page, she gasped slightly as she saw her own breath visible against the air, and the yellow glow of the sun had turned into a brilliant orange that broke through the branches and told her that hours had passed them by.
The two quickly got to their feet, and they both shivered as they stood and finally felt how quickly it had become so cold.
“Well, at least we’ll be able to finally get out of these pumpkin clothes.” Hunter grunted as he tried to scrape off the pumpkin that had been forgotten, cooled and stuck to his clothes.
Luz laughed at the sight as she began to make her way through the woods again. “Well, after we get rid of all this pumpkin, you have turkey to look forward to.”
“Right, that other human holiday, what did you call it? Thankful Givings?” Hunter felt Flapjack shiver against his head, so plucked the cardinal from his hair and gently let him rest in the inner pocket of his coat.
“Thanksgiving. But yeah, you’ll love it, my mom is gonna go big on the meal with how many of us there are. Unless we find-” Luz cut off her sentence as reality struck her and she stared back down at the notebook in her hand.
Aside from the sketch she had spent the past few hours on, the pages were still filled with reminders of her failure to take everyone home.
“Hey Hunter…” Turning to the grimwalker, Luz’s saddened gaze pulled his attention as he stopped their trek. “Luzura and the Prince, do- do you think they’re ever gonna find their friends in the woods?”
She felt ridiculous, hiding her worries behind the drawing and the characters. But she couldn’t bring herself to face the idea head on, and found some semblance of ease in the pseudo-escapism of her drawing. Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt Hunter’s callused hand grip hers.
“From what I read of Luzura- before she died-” Luz giggled slightly at Hunter’s words as they continued through the woods, “is that she doesn’t give up, least of all, on her friends. It might take some time, but I’m sure that whatever mistakes she made, they’ll forgive her. The Prince already has.”
“I haven’t even talked about how the Prince felt yet~” Luz teasingly poked at Hunter’s side and chuckled as he batted her hands away.
“You didn’t need to.” Luz’s giggles slowly faded as she smiled up at Hunter, and quickly pulled him into an embrace.
“And Luzura likes the Prince just as he is, even if he isn’t sure about it himself.”
“Is there some twist about this Prince character you haven’t gotten to in the story yet~?”
Luz giggled at Hunter’s own teasing tone and nudged him with her elbow again. “Maybe there is. But I’m not gonna spoil one of my loyal readers.”
As the two laughed and began going back and forth, getting lost in ideas about the two characters, they forgot the troubles that plagued them for a little while longer, and forgot that their hands were still holding tightly onto each other.