Chapter Text
There were a few key things that Hunter remembered after he and his friends had left in Camila’s car that Halloween evening. Most of that night and the subsequent time between then and the final defeat of Emperor Belos was fragmented and hazy within the young grimwalker’s memories. Hunter remembered the hayride, seeing Belos in the woods, and then running blindly after the haunting voice and glowing eyes. He remembered fighting in and out of consciousness, flashes of distortion, magic blasts, and finally water filling his vision. After that, he remembers waking up in the Space In Between.
He had thrown himself into the water, attempting to take himself and Belos out for good. He had drowned. He had died. Well, sort of. The next memory is one of the key visions Hunter could recall about that night. For a moment, he was alone in the Space In Between. Then, in the next moment, Flapjack was there with him. The small red bird had chirped comforting sentiments toward his companion, then rested in the calloused palms of his hands. The palisman had formed an isolated patch of warmth within the void of otherwise sensationless space that the two beings occupied together.
Hunter knew what was happening, and why Flapjack had appeared to him in those fleeting moments. He knew that he had no choice in the matter, that Flapjack had already made the decision for both of them. Deep grief and love flowed between both of them for a few moments, while Hunter’s fingers shakily brushed through the bird’s feather crest. He was soft, and gently nibbled at Hunter’s fingers. Only Flapjack could find a way to make a moment like this so endearing.
Flapjack’s warmth had spread from Hunter’s palms up through his body, settling deep in the hollow of the boy’s chest. It blossomed outward, unfurling like the bright, warm red plumage of the bird’s wings. Then, Hunter’s eyes opened, and the heat fizzled. He was alive again, but a vital part of him was now absent. He would never get to hold Flapjack again.
Grief was a new feeling for Hunter at this point in his life. As the Golden Guard, he hid all of his emotions physically and metaphorically behind his expressionless mask, the dark slits in its front allowing for him to see outward, but never for another being to see inward and meet the true intentions in his eyes. Discomfort and regret were commonplace as the emperor’s nephew and right hand man, but never would the boy dare to show any ounce of hesitation. He was simply following orders. Having emotions about those orders wasn’t in his job description.
However, he had then found himself laying back against Willow’s lap, her hands cupping his cheeks as tears burned down over the new scars across his face. Nothing had ever felt worse in his life. Not whenever Belos had punished him, not when he discovered he was the clone of a dead man, not even when he was on the run for his life after discovering the Emperor’s true nature. Not a single thing in the boy’s short life could hold a fraction of the weight that Flapjack’s absence left crushing into his chest. Flapjack had made him feel as though he finally had autonomy and purpose in his life. The palisman was his best friend. Now, in one fell swoop, both his best friend and his sense of purpose were gone.
After that, and after returning to the demon realm, nothing but anger and thirst for revenge burned through every muscle in his body. His vision clouded with smoke, sense of hearing broken apart by crackling and hissing. He hadn’t meant to snap so much at his friends, his family, but he knew no way to properly alleviate his agitation, and so it burned through his words like dragon’s breath. This is where the second key memory begins to fade in through the smog.
He hadn’t meant to upset Willow when she’d handed him the photo. He truly hadn’t known what to say, or how to process the gesture. On the one hand, her thinking of him and actively trying to comfort him had meant more to him than he’d ever know how to find the words for. On the other hand, seeing the captured memory of himself and Flapjack looking so free and happy churned in melancholy waves through his stomach. He missed his friend so much. Before he could process any of what was happening, Willow had left the room, Gus following suit. He had already lost one very important being to him today, he had to quickly wake up enough to prevent losing anyone else. And so he followed.
Willow had been the first witch he’d ever told directly how much everyone meant to him. Words of affirmation were not Hunter’s forté, not by a long shot, but in the height of raw emotional turmoil, the words just spilled out. He and Willow were much the same in the sense that they both had an outward strength they felt they needed to uphold, meanwhile coming at the expense of being able to express their internal fears. She was always there for him, and he was determined to be there for her. Even if that meant braving the act of trying to speak what he was feeling. He had to be brave for real this time.
Something about this moment of honest bravery acted akin to a key turning in a lock. The lock was rusted, and the key scraped uncomfortably over worn metal, but a door inside the boy opened up. He had never been truly brave as the Golden Guard. Everything had been a facade, where the Emperor’s Teen Prodigy could parade around in polished boots knowing nothing could threaten him without intervention from the full force of his uncle’s empire coming down upon them. The ironic truth was that Belos was perhaps the one and only thing that ever posed a true and active threat to him. The even more ironic truth was that, never had Hunter been more scared and more brave than when he was just plain old Hunter.
His heart pounded in his chest alongside the rhythm of wing beats, and suddenly he as well as Gus and Willow were suspended midair in a flash of golden energy. Then, as soon as they were up, they were plummeting down into the earth below them. Hunter hadn’t thought, just acted. Just moved. ‘The magic of Flapjack,’ Willow had called it. Perhaps Flapjack wasn’t truly gone after all.
The final core memory sees Hunter standing at the very head of the Isles, gazing out over the whole Titan from within the creature’s massive skull. The feeling of a finger grasping his own curls into his brain through wisps of warmth. This moment just between him and Willow would consume every spare thought from that moment on.
“ You mean a lot to me, too.”
Her voice was hypnotic, and the memory drowned out every other sensory input whenever it replayed through his head. The phantom sensation of her hand brushing his left his skin tingling with warmth. He wanted to bring whatever that was up with her again. He needed to. It was as if somebody had laid a curse upon him, leaving him tossing and sweating at night, staring and stumbling during the day, and the only cure was Willow Park. Maybe she herself was the curse, though the word seemed hardly appropriate for something as wonderful and wholesome as Willow. He wasn’t entirely sure of why he was feeling the way he did around her, but he was certain of the fact that said feeling had only burned deeper and more intensely since that moment with her up on the Titan’s skull.
As the Golden Guard, he had been sharp and witty, unafraid. In stark contrast, as just Hunter, around Willow he felt dizzy and illiterate, and fumbled over his words. All he wanted to do was talk to her for hours and then listen to her talk for hours, but sometimes all he could manage was a dry wheeze whenever Hunter opened his mouth to try and voice his thoughts. She never seemed to mind too much though, and was more than happy to recount with him everything she had been doing each day, and what she hoped to achieve in the coming days. Hunter would make note of every plan and hope the girl had, perhaps wishing he himself could warp the very fabric of space and time just so that she could have perfect days. Maybe him being without a bile sac was a good thing after all, because he was certain that having access to his own magic would only encourage him to do increasingly silly and probably dangerous things in her name.
He had never really felt this way about another person before. He had dedicated all his life to trying to cure and impress the Emperor, but that was different. Willow was different. He wasn’t scared of her hurting or berating him. He was afraid to disappoint her, sure, but not for the same reasons as he had feared disappointing Belos. Somehow, the idea of earning a simple smile from the girl felt more momentous than every scrap of praise he had been offered over the years as the Emperor’s servant. But why? Wasn’t that kind of a huge potential breach of security, being so highly invested in a single being like that? It hadn’t ended well with Belos, after all.
Hunter tried to process this often while laying back in bed at night, absentmindedly fiddling with the fabric of his gloves while his eyes trained themselves on the ceiling. He hadn’t had to think or feel so much before meeting his now friends and family. It had been difficult and empty, but life as the Golden Guard had at least been streamlined. All he had to do was listen to and follow orders, sleep, rinse and repeat. Now, the fear of his own pointlessness tied his stomach into knots. Sometimes, he longed to return to the simplicity of simply having a set plan to follow step-by-step. Other times, little things as simple as choosing what he wanted to wear each day reminded him of how free he felt.
It was all so confusing, to say the least. Everybody seemed to have a clear plan or trajectory for where they wished to place their efforts. Everybody, that was, except for Hunter. He helped his friends wherever he was needed, but otherwise tried to push himself to the background and keep a low profile. Sure, most everybody on the Boiling Isles had never seen his face before, as it was hidden behind his mask, but his time as the Golden Guard replayed through his mind constantly. Belos had been completely horrific in the end, but the fact was that he had been all that Hunter had once upon a time. With the Emperor dead and the castle destroyed, Hunter felt as if he was simply constantly adrift everywhere that he went.
He still felt as though every good thing he received had to be earned somehow. He had been the Emperor’s right hand man once, and had carried out dastardly things in his name. In some part, the blonde felt responsible for all of the pain and disarray that the Boiling Isles was facing in the aftermath. Despite how desperate he was to help and to prove himself, the boy couldn’t completely fight off the gnawing thought that he was simply just in everybody’s way now. Darius had offered for Hunter to live with him, since the kid was literally out of a home, and had cautiously agreed despite the immense guilt that stiffened his limbs and clenched his jaw. Darius clearly cared for Hunter, but of course the young man would be the only one oblivious to that fact. He was too focused on trying to validate his own existence to realize that it wasn’t necessary to begin with; he already had the unconditional love of so many.
But everything had a condition. That was one sentiment that he had been raised on by the Emperor. The Emperor had “found” and “saved” him, given him shelter and a title, and therefore Hunter was forever indebted to him and would do anything that he willed. It was hard to simply throw a lifetime’s worth of brainwashing away simply because he actually had real friends now. What would even happen to all of those relationships as soon as everything went back to “normal,” anyways? They had been forced to live with him for months in the human realm, but now they could return to their families, to school, and to their everyday lives. Where would Hunter fit into this? Where would Hunter even fit into his own life after he wasn’t needed anymore?
These fears festered in silence for weeks behind tired brown eyes. It felt selfish to say, but he kind of missed being trapped in the human realm with his friends. He would never admit this out loud, because he knew how distraught they all had been without their families. It was easier, he supposed, because he didn’t really have family to miss while he was there. He had Darius and Eberwolf, sure, but he still struggled at coming to terms with the fact that the two witches considered him family, or at least held an affection for him. Luz and Camila Noceda had also assured the boy that he was a part of their family as well, much to the same result of insecurity. If he had no family by blood, then he had to earn whatever family he hoped to gain.
There were things that Hunter wanted, but those would have to wait. He still wanted to go to school with his friends, and to play flyer derby again. He wanted to learn everything he could about wild magic. He had combed through all of the banned books he had been able to get his hands on as a scout, but now he had the chance to actually see real wild magic, and maybe even learn some of it himself. He wanted to learn to carve palismen. It wouldn’t make up for all the lives he sacrificed to Belos in order to keep the Emperor alive, but at least now he could use his hands for good instead of the opposite.
Hunter supposed that would be what his main goal should be for now. Figuring out what he wanted. Maybe, trying to follow some sort of purpose was skipping too many steps. What did he even want his purpose to be, first of all. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to figure this out all by himself. He had access to his family and friends, and an entire Island’s worth of knowledge and experiences to learn from. This would bring him comfort, and allowed him to sleep a little better each night. Each day was new and full of possibilities, Hunter just had to reach out and find them.