Work Text:
Everything leads to the Boiling Isles
“King? King!”
“You need to shake him!” Hooty's shrill voice was enough to wake him. He felt soft pushes on his arm –almost nothing to him. King was sure that whoever was pushing him was giving their all.
King opened his eyes, lifting his head from where it rested on the vacant Owl House, to find Amity and Luz’s first-born child staring up at him.
“Azura,” King smiled. It had been a while since he had seen her last. She had taken up the mantle of caring for anyone in the original “Heroes of the Isles ™,” A.K.A. The Owl Gang, after Amity passed. Azura was always busy – caring for her spouse, kids, and grandchildren – and the occasional board meeting at Blight industries. Unfortunately, this left King only to see her during the holidays. Anything more usually came with bad news.
“Hooty, King. It’s Gus” Azura kept rubbing her hands together. King picked up the motion as nervousness, “His son found him early this morning.”
*
The funeral was rather large. King wasn’t sure if Gus would have wanted the ceremony to be so… overpopulated. However, this wasn’t a traditional funeral. This was the funeral of the last Heroes of the Isles. Never-ending flowers and words of sympathy given to both Hooty and King followed the event.
“Just me and you now. Huh, King?” Hooty whispered. King would've missed it if the tiny mobile home wasn’t right next to his ear.
King paused; I’ll be the last one standing, won’t I?
He was being a titan and all – a being that could live to be a million years old. Hooty, being a demon, would not make it that long. King stared at Hooty with tears before finally saying, “Yeah, buddy, just us now.”
***
King woke with a sudden pain in his face.
“King!”
King opened his eyes to find himself planted on the ground.
“Look what you did!”
The titan pushed himself off the ground, spitting out dirt. He rubbed his eyes only to open to the rubble of roof tiles, stucco walls, and foundation underneath him. The building crumbled under King’s weight.
“It’s gone….”
The door was magically undamaged. However, Hooty looked like he hit a few times.
“You destroyed the Owl House!” Hooty snapped, suddenly appearing right in front of King’s face.
“I’m sorry!” King desperately tried to put the rubble back to the point that resembled a home. It was no use. Tears fell from the titan’s face onto the ground. King couldn’t believe he had destroyed his childhood home. Tears blinded his vision. Everything started to spin. His breaths started to become erratic.
Something warm wrapped around the titan. Hooty was trying to hug him. King's breaths steadied.
“King, it’s okay. It was an accident.”
That night they both decided to move out to the boiling sea. With King’s ever-growing weight and height, he stood at fifty feet. It limited where they could go without hurting someone. Now that the Owl House was gone, there was nothing to keep them there.
************
Now at 200 feet in height, King sat in the boiling sea. The heat from the water didn’t bother him at all. Hooty’s tiny mobile home fell apart, so Hooty wedged himself between King's shoulders.
“Oh, look! That one just bought a cake!”
King could not figure out how Hooty did not lose his voice. King would wake, and Hooty would describe everything he saw to him. King could hear Hooty continue to talk as he fell asleep. It was never-ending.
Somedays, kids would make their way to the edge of the Titan’s arm. Some witches would talk to them both, primarily for guidance or prayer, but nothing came from it. No adventures. No friendships. Nothing. The children of the original gang had passed, and their great-grandchildren had no connection to either of them.
“Look, King, he just tripped over a demon! The cake is everywhere!”
King’s eyes scanned Bonesborough to see the adult witch cleaning himself off. King started laughing. The ground began to shake.
“Stop laughing, King! You’re making the ground rumble!”
King stopped and looked to see all the citizens of Bonesborough pick up many fallen items. Babies were crying. Windows were shattered.
“Oops.”
“They look mad.”
At this size, King could do nothing to help. His hands were too large to coordinate properly. Boulders were like pebbles under his fingertips – anything he could do for those citizens would break instantly.
“Hooty, I think we need to leave.”
“What? Why?”
“There was nothing here for us anymore. Eda’s and Lilly’s gravestones are crumbled into pebbles from years of wear and tear. The Grom tree has even died from old age.” King paused, gathering his thoughts for anything that could still tether them here. Luckily King had Hooty snatch a seedling from the Grom tree, which was now growing on some part of King’s body, “What reason should we stay?”
Hooty hummed to himself, looking back over Bonesborough. He paused for a moment before screaming, “Let’s go on an adventure!”
With that, King got up and walked out into the boiling ocean.
************************************
King just walked and walked. Being himself, Hooty would talk about their past or their adventures. Sometimes Hooty would say he saw something new – however, everything looked the same: the vast ocean. Sometimes they would see ships—other times, islands. With the hundreds of years they’ve traveled, there was always something new.
“Look at that view, King! Look how beautiful that sunset is”, Hooty squawked. King turned to see nothing but the horizon where the sky met the ocean.
“Hooty…This is the same…view…we’ve seen…forever”, King struggled to get out. The massive weight on his neck and chest had grown, leaving him to struggle to use his vocal cords and lungs, “How about…we….rest?”
“Yay!” Hooty yelled as King lay down in the ocean. Waves cascaded through the water before King laid on his back – causing another giant wave.
“King, you almost got boiling water on me! Be careful!”
King grunted in response and just stared up at the sky. Pastel clouds cascade from a deep blue to bright orange.
“I remember something like this happening to me before,” Hooty questioned himself, “Watching the stars like this with no lights other than them.” Hooty wormed his way over to one of King's eyes.
“I don’t remember who I was with,” the bird-tube hummed before flopping down onto King's head.
“But I do remember I was on the Boiling Isles.”
“Aren’t you… like over… three thousand years old?” King's deep voice caused the water to ebb and pull. But, no matter how loud King's voice was, it sounded normal to Hooty.
“That I can remember!” Hooty screeched and dragged his body like a toddler with a tantrum on the living being below him.
King dropped the subject. There was always much about Hooty he didn’t know about, even after many, many, many years they had been together. It was still a mystery how Hooty came to being. Hooty did have a Mom, so there is some ‘birth.’
“They’re beautiful…” the ground rumbled again. Water crashed upon King's petrified fur like waves on the beach.
“What?” Hooty turned to look at what King was looking at, “Oh yeah, stars. They are beautiful.”
After moments of content silence between them and the ocean crashing along King's body – King's eyes started to close, and he fell asleep.
Hooty checked King and saw him asleep, so he went to sleep too.
Hooty woke with the sun peeking out of the horizon. King laid still while Hooty fished for food. By the time the sun was high, Hooty had figured something was wrong.
“King? King, wake up!” Hooty slammed his body into King's face. King did not respond, however. There was no waking him now. For days Hooty cried over King.
************************************************
Hooty still talked to himself despite King’s death. His shrill voice would narrate every action he would do. So he never felt truly alone.
King’s corpse started to become one with the ground – trees and plants started growing along it. The Grom tree produced seedlings along the coasts. Plants raised from the seaskulls that traveled.
Days would pass until they became years. Years became hundreds of years. Hooty hibernated during that time. He planted himself in King's right eye socket - free from any large creatures that could pick him off. He woke twice through the now thousands of years; once, he saw ships docked along the hip, and the second time, after a few more hundred years, he saw towns littered across various parts of King’s body.
Hooty still went back to sleep, however. The time didn’t feel right.
************************************************************************
When Hooty woke again, he felt a pull of something. Or rather, he heard an animated conversation echoing in the cavern.
“There is nothing in there!” a young feminine voice yelled. Is that…? Who was that?
The voice sounded like someone he knew, but he could not remember a name. Finally, he remembered a tall woman with dark hair. Leah? Lizzy? … Lilly? It started with an L.
“You can’t tell me what to do.”, another familiar voice he knew. He could hear a shuffle before an audible oomph echoed through the cavern. “See, I’m fine!”
Okay, he should know this. Eva? Eve? …Eda? Eda!
It’s Eda!
“Eda!”
The sound of footsteps stopped, “Who is there?”
“It’s me, Hooty! Hoot!” he cooed and moved throughout the cavern to smack dab into a young teenager. She looked different, but her voice was the same. The other individual has the same voice as… Lilith! The memories flooded back.
“Uh,” The teenager tried to pull the bird-tube that wrapped around her body away, “I have no idea who you are.”
Hooty looked up at the new face. She might look different, but Hooty could feel it was the same soul.
“Whom are you talking to?” the voice that sounded like Lilith echoed through.
The teenager was finally able to pull Hooty out of his constrictor hold.
“Look, I got to go. I’m not this Eda, okay” the teenager spun on her heel. Hooty squirmed in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.
“Please don’t leave me!” Hooty cried, “I’ve been here for hundreds of years!”
The teenager looked down at the bird-worm, who was crying. She looked at him with what looked like pity.
“Fine,” she relented and pulled the bookbag off her shoulder. She unzipped it and held it in front of the bird’s face.
“Get in.”
“Yay!” Hooty screamed. He unfurled himself and planted into the bag.
“That was gross,” the not-Eda gagged, “Will my stuff be okay?”
“I hope so!”
Not-Eda hefted the bookbag back over her shoulder.
Not-Eda stepped out from the socket, and Hooty felt the sun for the first time in hundreds of years. Though the warmth from it was very welcoming, the warmth of knowing that the Owl Gang was still here was more substantial. They will always meet again, whether at different times, appearances, or circumstances – there will never be a final goodbye.
************************************************************************
********************************************
************************
******
*