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Today was King's turn to watch Hunter, a task everyone dreaded. Not that they didn't want to spend time with him, but rather the opposite - a few days after they started cleaning out Belos's castle, Hunter had just... shut down emotionally. They knew it had to do with finding Belos's old journal, the one with the grimwalker recipe. Hunter had clenched it tight enough to rip out a few pages as everyone looked on in worry. It seemed that was the final straw. All of the trauma that Hunter had so casually put in his mental box of "things to deal with later" finally exploded under the weight of too many items and it all came flooding out in a wave of tears that eventually dwindled to crippling melancholy. Since then, he barely ate, barely slept, barely spoke to anyone. It was decided he sit out the remainder of the clean up effort and that someone stay with him at the Owl House, both to watch him "just in case" and to try coaxing him out of this funk. But no matter how many "it's going to be okay"s or "screw Belos"s they spouted, nothing penetrated the aura of gloom surrounding him. No one knew how to snap him out of it.
Today was King's turn to watch Hunter, and he was determined to help. He wasn't as close to the boy as everyone else, but liked him well enough. Luz seemed really attached to him, as much as King himself was attached to her. So if cheering Hunter up would make Luz happy, he was gonna do his best! Waving goodbye to everyone as they left for the day, King turned to the sad sack slumped on the couch staring off into nothing and cracked his knuckles. This was going to take every comedic bone in his little body.
After moments of deep thought, he concluded that bread puns always had a 100% success rate of cheering Luz up. King scurried into the kitchen and grabbed two slices off the counter. He then nonchalantly approached Hunter, ramming his little snout right through the middle of one while waving the other as he got close.
"Hey Hunter!" No response, but that's never stopped King before. "Stop loafing around, let's have some bun!" His tail wagged, excitedly at first, but slowing to a standstill when his opener didn't even garner as much as a chuckle. "Aw, come on. I know you're feeling sour, dough at yeast you have your friends!"
There was barely a shift, but he could see Hunter blinking as his eyes began focusing slightly downward at him. It was something. Though still not anywhere near the reaction King had hoped.
"Not even a smile? You're baking my heart! You need your grain examined, cause I'm on a roll." Still nothing. King frowned. "Come on, man. This is good stuff! My best stuff! In fact, I've killed with stuff like this!" For some reason, that got a mirthless bark of a laugh from the boy, though King had no idea what was so funny.
"Stuff," Hunter groaned, closing his eyes. "That's all I am. Stuff. Just a bunch of inanimate stuff."
"Weh?" King tilted his head, confused. But it was better than the zoned-out staring from earlier, so he clamored onto the couch next to Hunter to try and coax out more. "What do you mean?" When the other took too long to reply, he tried again. "You can crust me."
He didn't really expect a laugh anymore, but he also didn't expect Hunter's expression to scrunch tightly as tears beaded the corner of his eyes. Oh no, what had he done? He made things worse! He's not equipped for this!
As King spiraled into silent panic, Hunter clenched a fist against his chest and sniffled. "What do I mean? You saw the journal. I-I'm not even made of actual witch parts. I'm just... stuff. A galderstone for a heart. Stonesleeper lungs." He sagged, shoulders slumping even more as his hand dropped into his lap where he flexed fingers slowly as if wondering the mechanics behind such movement. "Palistrom wood skin. Selkidomus scales." The fingers continued their slow waving as his eyes began to unfocus once again behind a haze of slowly building tears. "And the bone of a human who had overshadowed me my entire life without my even knowing..."
Yikes. This was some heavy stuff. He realized Hunter was dealing with a lot right now, did King really think bread of all things could help? He glanced down at the slice still clenched between his claws. Well, maybe... maybe it can. He took a deep breath and looked up at Hunter. "You... you know what bread is made of?" The only indication Hunter even heard him was a slight twitch of his ear. That was good enough. "Mostly flour. Water to make everything stick. Eggs and butter for taste. Salt for some reason. And yeast to make it fluffy. You mix it all together," King went on. "And... and you bake it. And it comes out bread." He held up the slice, pleased as Hunter's eyes flicked over at the movement. "See? It's no longer eggs or flour or any other... stuff. And it never will be again, cause there's no way to make it back into those things. When people look at this, all they see is bread now."
King gently set the slice of bread down in Hunter's open hand. After a moment, the boy's fingers closed around it.
"That's you," King said cheerily. "Maybe you started out as stuff, but that doesn't matter anymore. You're bread now. And everybody loves bread."
Finally, after days and days of seeing nothing but emptiness on his face... Hunter's lips twitched upwards into a small smile. King's tail immediately began wagging again. "Look, I know what it's like to think you're something all your life only to find out you're... not what you thought you were. When I found out I was a titan, I was worried people were gonna look at me different. But they didn't. They got used to it and I'm still King. Just like you're still Hunter. Being made of stuff didn't effect you before, so I don't see why it should now. You still have normal skin, normal lungs and a normal beating heart. Nothing's changed about you or how much we all like you."
As King spoke, tears began flowing down Hunter's cheeks until he was full on crying. He was crying, but he was also smiling. So that was a good thing, right?
It took a while before Hunter's sobs calmed down to just sniffles. "Thanks, King," Hunter huffed as he wiped his face with a sleeve. "I... I really kneaded to hear that."
King blinked. Did he just...? No, couldn't be, he had to have imagined it. "So are you okay now? Will you stop being all mopey and play with me?"
Hunter sighed, taking a little nibble from the bread in his hand to hide a small, wavering grin. "...I dunno, I still feel kinda crumby."
HE DID. King gasped and immediately fell over into a fit of giggles. Hunter's going to be doughing just fine.