Chapter Text
Wind whipped hair into Eda’s face as she ran. She wouldn’t - no, couldn’t - stop. As if her week hadn’t been bad enough, attacking her-... nope, not gonna think about that, becoming that… thing again. And now, this. The words she’s just heard kept racing through her mind.
“Cut it out if you have to!”
She couldn’t believe her mother could say that. No, wait, yes she could. It was her mother, after all. She loved her, sure, but she could be so… much. She looked down at the gem in her hand, and tucked it into her pocket, figuring it may come in use one day. It was better than nothing, after all. She should’ve asked for an extra, for Raine. Too late for that now, though. She wasn’t going back there. Not now, not ever.
Run, run, run.
Suddenly, she tripped. Turning to look at what she stumbled on, she let out a small ‘huh?’ before pulling the suitcase-looking object from the ground. Wiping the dirt off of the case, she barely spotted what appeared to be an eye before a white light nearly blinded her as the case took on a mind of its own and flipped out of her hands.
Suddenly, there was a door.
On the other side? It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. The grass was… green? And the sky, blue. It was… crazy. Insane.
“What?” she let out, leaning to take a closer look.
“Edalyn! Edalyn is that you?”
A determined look fell onto Eda’s face as she continued to stare into the weird landscaping. She didn’t have a choice. She leapt into the door, and it vanished behind her.
The familiar sound of banging on their window pulled Raine’s attention from their own head. They rubbed at their eyes before putting their new pair of glasses on, finally having gotten a pair to replace the ones lost on the day they first transformed. To top everything off, it seemed the transformation had made their vision even worse. They grabbed the window frame and pushed it open.
“Let’s go,” Eda said the second Raine’s window opened. “Right now, pack a bag, let’s go and never come back.”
“What?” Raine asked, recoiling. What had gotten into her? “Eda? W-Where have you been the past week?”
“Away. And we’re running away again, together now, duh,” Eda said, hopping off of Owlbert’s staff and onto the windowsill. “You’re trapped, I’m sick of having to jailbreak you, let’s just go where we can be free somewhere. Somewhere cool.”
“We can’t just go riding off into the sunset on a ratworm and call it happily ever after,” Raine exclaimed, throwing their hands in the air in exasperation.
“I think that’s exactly what we should do,” Eda said, eyes bright. “I just need to find where to steal a ratworm….”
Raine sighed, shaking their head, “you have to take this seriously, Eda. This is our lives at stake. If we ran now, we’d be running for years, if not forever.” Hiding out until they were legal adults was really the bare minimum - Eda seemed to be embracing her whole ‘wild witch’ thing going on lately, so who’s to say they could ever rejoin society? What kind of coven would even take two cursed witches? And was that what they really wanted - was it what they wanted her to have to deal with, just to get them out of this situation?
“I made up my mind, Raine,” Eda said, suddenly serious. “I’m leaving with or without you, but I’d rather it be with you.” She turned, no longer looking at them, and instead looked out at the sky. “I’ve got a place where we can hide, and no one will ever find us there. We can come back once this all blows over.”
Would it ever, though?
“Why?” Raine asked, softly placing a hand on her shoulder. “You never run away from a challenge, why now?”
There was silence for a while. Raine almost spoke up again before, finally, Eda spoke.
“I hurt someone,” Eda admitted, looking down at her hands in her lap. “And I never want to do that again. And then more shit happened. And so I left. But I didn’t want to leave you behind. So now I’m here, asking you to come with me. Please.”
Raine was shocked at the admittance, having believed Eda was adapting to this Owl Beast thing far better than they were. Who had she hurt, how bad was it? They opened their mouth to ask, but quickly shut it, knowing now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t about them right now, was it. Eda had begun with acting like this was for them, but really, it was for her. And she just didn’t want to be alone right now.
And they didn’t want to leave her alone, either.
“Okay.”
They could hardly believe the word came out of their mouth, but it did. They’d really just agreed to go run away with her. They’d done a lot of crazy things together in the past, but this just might be the craziest of all. But seeing the smile that suddenly lit up Eda’s face was worth it.
Titan, they were whipped .
Eda jumped off the windowsill and into the room in a flash, grabbing Raine’s backpack and spilling the contents onto the bard’s bed.
“Okay, grab some clothes, I have a bit of grub stashed away already, and we can grab more where we’re going,” she said, glancing around the room for anything else she should grab. She quickly took a few pictures off Raine’s wall, figuring the sentimental bard would want something to look back on (and she’d never admit to wanting to look back on them herself so don’t even ask).
Raine stood still for a moment before shaking their head and grabbing some random clothes from their dresser.
“And where are we going, exactly?” they asked, tidily placing their clothes into their bag and pulling out the few things Eda had packed to fit it in more methodically. They were scared to see how her packed bags looked.
“I can’t tell ya, that’d ruin the surprise,” she said, turning to them with a wink. “But we need to hurry before your moms get home.”
Raine nodded and the two packed together silently. There wasn’t much to pack, really - Raine wasn’t very material. Most of the things they’d have liked to take, like music books and records, just weren’t practical on a runaway, so they stuck to clothes and a few small mementos. Fortunately, a bard’s instruments could be stored away in the magical void so they didn’t need to worry about those. Those would have required multiple trips on their own, let alone other necessities.
“Is it where you’ve been the past week?” they asked, curious about where their girlfriend had gone.
“Yup,” she replied, popping the ‘p’, unwilling to give up any more information. “Get a move on, slowpoke.”
Raine just shook their head and zipped up their backpack, tossing it over one shoulder. They motioned for Eda to jump out of the window first, which she did without hesitation, landing on Owlbert. She held a hand out for Raine to more gracefully step out and slide onto the staff.
“Hold on tight, Rainestorm.”
They weren’t flying for long, but already Raine was confused. They were just flying seemingly mindlessly into the woods. Raine didn’t know of anything in this direction besides more trees, and certainly nowhere that they thought would be a safe short-term hideout, let alone long-term.
“Um, Eda? Where are we going?” they asked, biting their lower lip, concerned with what they’d agreed to.
“Away,” Eda repeated, a determined smirk set on her face. “Once we get away, I can show you.”
Well, that didn’t tell them much, but they sighed and resigned themselves to wait. A few more minutes passed of quiet flying, Raine’s arms wrapped around Eda’s waist. They eventually leaned forwards and let their head rest on her shoulder. The excitement was already fading, and honestly? They were a bit scared. But only a bit.
“Okay, this should be good,” Eda said, aiming Owlbert to fly lower and eventually stop. As far as Raine could tell, they were absolutely in the middle of nowhere. No cave, no treehouse, nothing they’d have expected for a hideout.
“And where exactly are we?” Raine asked, still glancing around.
“No idea,” Eda admitted, reaching a hand in her hair and pulling out… a key? Before Raine could ask, she hit a button on the key and a case they hadn’t even noticed shot out and flipped open into…
A door.
“Wh-what?” Raine asked, stunned.
“I know, right?” Eda asked, excited. She placed one foot into the doorway, and held her hand out for Raine to grasp. “I know this is weird, but you just have to trust me, Rainestorm.”
Possibly unfortunately, they did trust her.
With no hesitance anymore, Raine reached forward and grasped their girlfriend’s hand, lurching forward as she yanked them through. They hadn’t even had a moment to look at what was on the other side but when they did?
It was beautiful.
Once Eda had yanked them through, she’d allowed their hands to drop to their sides - hands still clasped, of course - giving the bard a moment to take it all in. Even though she’d spent the better part of a week in these lands already, even she needed a moment.
The color palette of the land was so… different, from the Boiling Isles. And not a bad different, just… different. In fact, Raine thought it looked amazing. They inhaled and smelled the land, mostly similar to what they were used to but with a different edge to it.
“ Now I can tell you where we are,” Eda said, having stopped looking around and focused solely on the bard. Her expression was a soft smile as they spread their arms, gesturing to the world around them. “Welcome to the Human Realm!”
For what had to be the fifth time today, at least, Raine was stunned. Of course they’d heard of the Human Realm, things washed up along the shores from there all the time. But for the most part, it existed as a distant myth. A story to explain the weird objects found in trash slugs and along the coast, but not somewhere you could actually visit . And yet, here Eda was, showing them a magical place and claiming it to be those lands.
“H-how?” Raine asked, not able to make out more than one word at a time.
“I don’t know,” she admitted with a shrug, tucking the key back into her hair. “I just kinda found it. But anyways, it’s perfect - no one will find us here, just like I promised. And the portal even takes us right to our very own hideout!”
She gestured to the building behind them that Raine hadn’t even noticed. It looked… a lot less beautiful than what they had just been admiring. The window was smashed and the wood appeared to be falling apart. But, it was a structure, it had a roof, and it was probably better than the cave Raine was expecting.
“Let me give you a tour!” And with that, she pulled their clasped hands forward and into the building. Immediately casting a light spell when they entered, Eda pointed to one corner filled with blankets. “I’ve made a bit of a nest to sleep in over there, and obviously we can make it bigger now that you’re here. And I’ve just been keeping the food in bags over there-” she gestured to another corner “-but we can figure something better out later. Ooh, and we’ve got roommates!”
Okay, now Raine was really concerned.
“Eda, we can’t show ourselves to humans, you’re casting a light spell for Titan’s sake!” they exclaimed.
“Who said anything about humans?” she asked, reaching into a hole in the wall and pulling out… a fluffy gray creature with a black bandit mask on its fur? “It’s called a raccoon, and I’m calling him Mr. Wiggles.”
“Eda- Eda,” Raine interrupted, putting a hand on her shoulder as she dropped the raccoon back to the ground and it scampered back to its place in the wall. “This is… well, not great, but manageable. But... we can’t stay here forever.”
Eda sighed and dropped her head. “But why not?” she whined, even though she already knew the answer.
“We’re not humans,” Raine replied anyway. “We don’t belong here. But… let’s take a little vacation, maybe? And we can think of a more permanent solution while we’re here.”
Eda lifted her head and smiled, leaning her forehead against the other’s.
“This is why you’re my favorite,” she chuckled, brushing a quick kiss to their lips. “Always knocking me down into the world of the sane.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever been there,” Raine joked with a soft laugh. “We got this, Calamity.”
“Yeah, yeah we do,” she said with a deep sigh before pulling back and grasping Raine’s hand. “Come on, after all of this excitement, I need a nap.” She pulled them over to her nest and sat down, gesturing for them to join her.
“Are nests going to become a thing with you?” Raine joked as they sat down with her, leaning close to wrap their arms around her as they lay down. “Is it because you’re part owl now? Because, you know, you don’t see me hanging from the rafters.”
Suddenly Eda shot up, and grinned down at Raine.
“No, Eda, we are not going to try hanging from the rafters.”
“Well, you’re no fun.”