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"Are you really out here again?"
Hunter sat up from where he was laying on the floor, leaning back on one hand to peer at his guest standing in the doorway.
"I guess," he admitted vaguely.
Luz sighed and shut the door to the old house behind her as she stepped inside. The cottage was dark, only the light of the setting sun slipping through the cracks in the weather-beaten walls. She crossed the room to sit down beside him and lay on her back, folding her arms behind her head. After a moment, Hunter joined her, staring blankly at the ceiling.
"So. What's bothering you?" Luz prompted.
"My uncle is a genocidal megalomaniac religious zealot and I'm not a real person," he replied in a flat voice, "I'm a child soldier who's wasted his life making the world a worse place to live in."
"As much as I want to say "child soldier being the key part of that statement" or "just because you're not a witch or a human doesn't mean you're not a person,"" Luz said dubiously, "I don't think that's why you're out here. You only slip off to mope by yourself when it's something I don't know about."
He gave her a look that could spoil milk. "I hate that you can read me that well."
"No, you love it," she said primly, "Or you wouldn't also always tell me what it is."
He looked back at the ceiling with a grimace.
"C'mon, then. Open up the feelings box before I have to get the crowbar."
"Why did he make me like this?" Hunter asked at last, voice small.
Luz paused. "Like what?"
"Like–" He fidgeted uncomfortably. "You know."
"Trans?"
"Yeah," he mumbled. "That."
"I mean, did he make you trans?" she asked dubiously. "I feel like you made yourself that. You maybe just are that."
"But I'm based on Caleb, right?" Hunter prompted. "His brother. And his brother was– well, a man. Obviously. And as far as I know, every Golden Guard has been, too. I don't think I'm exactly like him, but Un– Belos said I was the most like him."
"I remember him saying you look the most like him."
"Caleb was a man," Hunter reiterated, "I'm made of palismen wood. I had to be carved. He had to decide to carve me… like this."
Luz was silent, staring at the same ceiling.
"Maybe Caleb was trans, too," she suggested.
"Caleb the puritan witch hunter?" Hunter asked dubiously.
Luz grimaced. "It's not… impossible."
"Even if he was," Hunter went on, "Why not just… make me… right?"
"There's nothing wrong with y–"
"It's not how I want to be!" Hunter groaned. "Why did he make me like this? On purpose?"
Luz was silent, thoughts whirling in a thick, uncomfortable sludge of theories. She swallowed around a lump in the throat.
"Hunter," she asked hesitantly, "Did he ever… touch you?"
Hunter frowned. "He touched me all the time. He used to squeeze my shoulder hard enough it hurt. He gave me this scar." He pointed at his cheek.
"That's not what I meant."
Hunter turned his head to stare at her. "What did you mean?"
"You know," she said, stumbling over words she didn't really want to say. "Like… in a way he shouldn't." His expression didn't change. "Sexually, Hunter."
"Oh." He blinked, frowned, then turned to look back at the ceiling, face screwed up as if it were the first time it had ever occurred to him to even think about it. "...No," he said eventually. "At least, I don't think so."
"You don't think so?"
"I barely have a frame of reference for what was and wasn't normal for anything else," Hunter shrugged, "I doubt I have a good idea about that stuff, either. Maybe he did, and I just haven't realized it yet."
Luz felt her stomach turn. "I'll ask Mamá if we can go to the library. We can probably find you a book that will help you figure it out."
"Do I really want to know?" he wondered aloud. "I could just stay in blissful ignorance."
"But wouldn't you just… wonder?"
He looked to the side and away. "Yeah. I probably would."
Luz chewed the inside of her lip for a long moment before she spoke. "Honestly, Hunter? Who knows why Belos did anything he did. Why did he murder Caleb? Why did he spend four hundred years planning an elaborate genocide? Why did he clone his brother a hundred times just to kill them all? Why did he think it was a good idea to make a deal with the Collector?" She sighed. "Every time you tell me about your life growing up, all I can think is– it feels like he did anything he possibly could to make your life more difficult and miserable. Maybe this was just one more thing he could do to undermine your self esteem so you'd keep relying on his approval."
"Maybe." Hunter rolled onto his belly and crossed his arms, setting his head in them. "I wish he hadn't."
"I wish he hadn't done a lot of things to you that he did."
Hunter looked at the floor before he sighed. "Thanks for talking to me. It always helps."
"Thanks for not making me get the crowbar," Luz grinned. "You know what would make you feel better?"
"A reprieve from soul-crushing body dysphoria?" he asked dryly.
"You know what would make you feel better that's actually within my capability of providing?" she amended.
"What?"
"Ice cream."
"What's ice cream?"
"Oh man. Have you not had ice cream yet? This is gonna be great. Trust me. You're gonna love it." She stood up and offered him a hand.
With a weak smile he accepted it and snorted, patting himself off from the dust on the floor as he stood. "I'd trust you if you told me a bug tasted great, dummy."
"Well, that's good then," she said slyly, "Because I have eaten so many bugs and I know exactly which ones do taste great."