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Eda frowned as the rain fell onto her cloak, thankfully missing any of her exposed skin. She adjusted the cloak to better cover herself as she continued to fly, outpacing the coven scouts behind her. She had to hide, and she knew it. But where?
After traveling over the Boiling Sea for who knows how long, she finally saw an island. Considering she couldn’t see the scouts behind her anymore, she figured she might as well land and wait out the storm. Angling Owlbert’s staff downwards, she carefully landed near a large structure, hoping she’d be able to find some shelter.
Fortunately for her, the structure had a gaping hole allowing entrance. She wasn’t sure what kind of civilization may have lived here in the past, but she was certainly grateful for them now. She walked along a long corridor, seeing small statues made of… rocks. Three stacked rocks, all of them forming similar formations. It was odd, and there was almost no chance it was a natural occurrence.
Suddenly, she heard a noise.
“Who’s there?” she called out, brandishing Owlbert defensively. “Show yourself!”
There was a presence behind her. She spun around and saw… a puppy?
“Nyeh!” it cried as it hoisted a curved rock into its… paws? and placed it on top of two others, finishing another statue. So this is what was building all those little things.
“Did you make all these things?” she asked, kneeling down beside the little guy. She gently scratched at the skull on its head, and it leaned into her touch, shutting its eyes. “What are you?” she asked, not expecting an answer. It was pretty dog-like, but she’d never seen a dog quite like this one.
Another noise, this one far louder than the one that revealed the cute little creature. Spinning around, Eda saw something that looked almost like a much larger version of the stone statues, with a pink membrane holding the stones together. Its eyes were beady and empty, showing no real life in them. What was it? Then it struck at her.
This place was pretty freaking weird, if you asked her.
Not thinking about the consequences, she grabbed the little creature into her arms and hopped onto Owlbert, who sped off out of the shelter. Fortunately, it had stopped raining by this time, though she’d been prepared to hide the little guy under her cloak.
The creature behind them shot an arrow, and Eda tried to dodge it, but the little guy in her arms was struck. The impact caused her to fall off Owlbert, dropping the creature into the sand below. Pushing herself to her feet, she quickly grabbed it along with its fallen off horn, and hopped back onto Owlbert. She had to get her - and it - to safety.
Part of her wasn’t sure why she’d taken the little guy with her. Maybe she just didn’t want him to die, but part of her thought it might be more than that. She flashed back to the conversation she’d had with Raine a few years ago, about having kids. Kids weren’t on the table for them, but maybe a dog, they’d said. Well, here was a dog… like creature falling right into their laps. Raine would kill her for not asking first, but hey, the house was half hers, the dog could just stay on her half of the house.
Plus it had adorable eyes and Raine would surely succumb to them sooner or later.
Racing her way home, Eda held the small creature tightly in his arms as he began to squirm.
“Now’s not really the time to try and look around, little guy,” she explained, using one hand to pat its head. It closed its eyes at the touch and let out another soft ‘nyeh’. She may be a cool, tough witch, but even she could admit it was adorable.
She’d need a collar for it. There was a pet supply stand near the beginning of the market that she’d need to stop by, but first, she had to get this little guy home. It’d been a big day for it, it probably needed to sleep - Titan knew she wanted to. But she was a pet owner now, and she needed to be responsible. So home, then collar, then figuring out food, then sleep.
Landing in front of the Owl House, Eda was surprised not to find Raine waiting for them in the living room. A book was out on the table, though, so they’d definitely been awake. They were probably upset that she hadn’t wound up coming home last night. The reminder that she technically hadn’t slept yet had her yawning, and she let the squirming bundle in her arms down to the ground. It immediately hobbled over to the table and picked up the book Raine had been reading. It tilted it every which way, examining it, before sticking a corner in its mouth.
“Aww, little guy’s hungry,” Eda muttered, feeling herself going soft for the creature. Suddenly it took the book out of its mouth and held it open in its hands, before taking both ends and ripping it in half. “Okay. So I need a collar and and I’m sorry our new dog ripped your book in half present. I can manage that.”
Setting both halves of the book down, it ran towards a box of human items Eda had yet to sort. Reaching in, it pulled out a small plush bear and ripped its head off.
“You’re a destructive little guy, aren’t you?” she asked, walking over to pat him on the head. It let out a soft ‘yip’ noise and jumped, scrambling into the box and knocking it over.
“I’ll tell you what. You play with that junk, while I go run to the store,” she said, as though it would respond. She even gave it a moment to reply before shrugging and heading back outside. If things went wrong, she’d blame her poor choices on her exhaustion.
Mounting Owlbert, she took off towards the marketplace. The pet supply stand had collars front and center, and it was very easy to nab one while the owner’s head was turned, talking to another client. Easy. Then she stopped at a flower shop and actually paid for some snapdragons for Raine. A full storefront was much harder to steal from than a stall, and flowers were the easiest ‘sorry for getting a dog without telling you’ gift she could think of.
Heading home with the items in hand, she was glad to see Raine hadn’t arrived back in the time she was gone. The little guy had gotten busy though, creating his statues now with discarded human junk rather than stones.
“Someone’s been having fun, hasn’t it?” Kneeling in front of the little creature, she snapped the collar around its neck before it could even notice she was doing anything. It let out a little ‘nyeh’ before looking at the golden tag. It stared for a moment before going back to work.
As it finished its next stack, it struck a proud pose and it caused Eda to let out a little snort of laughter. “Look at you. A king amongst his subjects,” she said from her place on the floor, watching it. Suddenly, the little guy dropped its pose and looked straight at her.
“King,” it said in a soft, childish voice. “King!” This time it was much louder, and the force of its own voice knocked it over onto its backside.
“It spoke…” Eda muttered before shuffling closer to the little guy. “Yeah, that’s right. A king.” She gave it a gentle boop on its nose before she continued to speak. “You know what else kings do? They command armies and eat delicious feasts.”
She went on and on about what kings do, and didn’t even notice when the door opened.
“Uhh… Eda? Is that you?” came Raine’s voice, causing both her and the little creature to jump.
“Over here!” she called from where she was on the ground by the table.
“What’s… going on?” they asked as they looked at all of the newly dubbed King’s ‘minions’.
“I got us a dog!” she said, gesturing to King. “Or… some sort of pet.”
“King!” it chimed in.
“Eda. Dogs don’t speak,” Raine reminded her.
“This one does,” Eda said proudly. “We got the coolest dog.”
“I don’t think it’s a dog,” Raine muttered, joining her on the ground to study King. “What made you think bringing a strange creature home was a good idea, anyways?” They sounded much calmer than Eda had expected.
“Well, you see, this big beast was trying to kill it, so I-”
“Eda! Why do you keep getting into deadly situations?” Raine shouted, causing King to stumble on his feet at the volume of their voice.
“Hey, I was just trying to avoid those stupid coven scouts,” Eda defended herself, crossing her arms. “It’s not my fault they have a thing for me.” Raine rolled their eyes.
“And you had to save it by bringing it home?” Raine asked, gesturing to King, who had just ripped another book in half. “It’s destroying everything we own!”
“Just some human junk,” she said, waving away their concern. “And one of your books on bard magic. But I can replace it! Plus, look-” she shoved the snapdragons into their face “-we got you flowers!”
“We?” Raine asked, grabbing the flowers and looking at them questioningly.
“King and I! You know, to make up for destroying your book!” Eda had a big grin on her face and Raine found themself sighing.
“If we’re going to have a pet, we can’t keep calling it ‘it’,” Raine said.
“Well, it called itself King. So it’s probably a boy,” Eda said, shrugging, the grin staying on her face as she knew that she had won.
“It probably doesn’t even know what a king is, Eda, your logic makes no sense.”
“My logic is flawless and I dare you to say otherwise.”
“I just did.”
The two stopped before breaking out in laughter. Feeling ignored, King walked over to the two of them and let out an angry ‘nyeh!’ before stomping his foot and falling over.
“Aww, he’s such an angry little thing,” Eda said, scratching at his skull again.
“I guess he is pretty cute,” Raine agreed, reaching over to scratch under his chin. King seemed to be in bliss at all the scratches he was getting.
“He has a name and a collar now, there’s no getting rid of him,” Eda pointed out, even though she knew she’d already won.
“Fine! He can stay,” Raine said, moving to scratch his stomach. He rolled over and let his little legs flail in the air, sighing happily at the feeling. “But you have to clean up after him.”
“Pssh, that’ll be easy,” Eda said, picking the creature up to cuddle him. He let out a ‘weh’ at the stop of the belly rubs, but didn’t seem to mind the cuddles.
“Starting with all of this,” Raine said, motioning to the room around them and all the human junk littered and shredded about.
“Oh.” She’d forgotten about that mess.
“So I’ll just take this little guy and show him our room while you get to work,” Raine said, slipping King out from Eda’s arms and into their own. King let out another ‘weh’, confused at all the movement, but snuggled into the bard’s arms as they stroked his skull.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” Eda called as they trekked up the stairs.
“Neither is coming home to find out I basically have a son,” Raine pointed out.
“Woah, woah, hey, what, who said anything about parents,” Eda said, defensively. “We decided that’s not for us.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of pet parents before?” Raine pointed out.
“Yeah no we’re not that kind of witches. He’s our roommate .”
“Yes, because it’s totally normal for you to fawn over your roommate and demand he cuddle you,” Raine joked.
“Maybe it is,” Eda said as she began to throw the mess back into the box King had knocked over. “Maybe we’re just… really close roommates.”
“Am I your roommate too, then?” Raine teased.
“When you act like this? You’re the second roommate. King’s the first.”
“Well then, I best go spend some time with the better roommate while you focus on cleaning.”
“I hate you. So much!” Eda yelled after them.
"I'll remind you that you said that next time you want me to fetch you your morning Apple Blood." After that remark, Eda heard the door shut to their bedroom and sighed. How could such a little guy make such a big mess so fast? And he'd probably just do it again the next day, based on the amount of statues he had set up where she found him.
Oh well. Hopefully he'd help to liven up their lives a bit. They'd grown a bit dull with age, and Eda didn't like it. She was always a cool kid, she didn't want to turn into a lame adult. Work life was dull, and while her home life was great with Raine in it, lately they hadn’t done anything fun. This little guy would bring some adventure to her life, she could already tell.
“All clean,” Eda said as she shoved open the door to their bedroom, three mugs in her hands.
“What do you have there,” Raine asked, sitting up in the nest with a book in their hands. King had curled up on their chest and fallen asleep.
“Apple Blood for the adults, and water for the… small child,” Eda said, not wanting to call him a baby. That would be weird, and make all of this feel parent-like. Small child was bad enough.
“Can he drink out of a mug?” Raine asked, thanking her as they took their own mug.
“It felt demeaning to bring him a bowl of water,” Eda admitted, setting her own mug next to the nest as she crawled in. King yawned, waking up thanks to Raine’s small movements and the noise of them talking. He gave a big, almost cat-like stretch and looked at Eda with his big eyes.
“Aww, look at the little guy,” she said, reaching over to scratch his skull, between the horns. “Do you want some water?”
King tilted his head before nodding, seeming to understand her. Yeah, he was way too smart for a dog. But then, what the hell was he?
“We should go to the library tomorrow, look up different demons,” Eda said as she passed the little guy the mug of water. It was half as big as he was, but he managed to tip it towards himself and take a refreshing sip, letting out an ‘ahh’ afterwards. Eda took the mug back and put it beside her own.
“Are we sure he's a demon?” Raine asked, setting their own book down.
“Well, what else could he be?” Eda pointed out. Raine had to admit she was right. He just wasn’t like any demon they’d seen before.
“A bit of research won’t hurt,” Raine admitted, stroking down King’s back as he settled between them in the nest.
“Tomorrow, though,” Eda reminded them. They laughed.
“Yeah, tomorrow. Today is for resting,” they agreed as Eda curled up into a ball beside King.
“You’ll fit right in, King,” Eda muttered sleepily, resting her hand on his head. He let out another ‘nyeh’ before resting his head down and falling asleep, Eda close behind.
“Welcome to the family, King,” Raine said, now that Eda couldn’t hear them. She may be too afraid to admit it, but they weren’t.
The next morning when they went downstairs, King ate Raine’s flowers.
“He’s definitely your son,” Raine said, looking at the loose stems and leaves that remained.
“Stop calling him that!”