Work Text:
Flapjack has lived with Bat Queen for hundreds of years, part of a community of palismen who lost the witches who carved them. And he likes this life, but he often thinks about the time he spent with Evelyn, the witch who carved him, and her human companion, a man called Caleb. So, when the Bat Queen gathers the palismen in her forest and asks if anyone would like to take part in a Palisman Adoption Day, Flapjack jumps at the chance. He would adore to bond with a witch again.
But Flapjack doesn’t find a suitable witch within the group of schoolchildren, not even the human girl whose bag he sneaks inside. Instead, his attention is brought to a boy who works for a man whom Flapjack understands to be a bad person. But Flapjack doesn’t care about that.
The boy, who he later learns is called Hunter, looks so much like Caleb that Flapjack almost mistook him for the man he knew centuries ago. He does bad things, but Flapjack can tell that Hunter only acts this way because of loyalty and fear of punishment, not because he enjoys being bad. He seems lonely too, unused to talking to another teenager, and passionate about harmless topics that he has obviously been taught are bad. And Flapjack wonders how much Hunter would change if he had a friend.
So, Flapjack makes a decision. He tells Bat Queen that he has found a witch after all this time, and she gives her blessing for him to leave. Flapjack flies to the Emperor’s Castle, where he enters Hunter’s bedroom and chirps to the boy. And although Hunter tells him to leave, Flapjack instead transforms into a staff in the boy’s hands.
He wants to be there for Hunter, just like he and Evelyn were for Caleb when the human found himself in a world so unlike his own.
(He just hopes and prays to the Titan that things don’t end up like last time.)