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“NO! KING! ”
Thorne watched as the human girl sprinted towards the door they had gotten blown through, opening it and closing it repeatedly in denial of what had just happened. What had just happened? Thorne had been too busy focusing on healing the scratches and cuts on the kids and had fallen out of focus.
The human, Luz, turned around to look at the group with wide, horrified eyes. The youngest witch started to cry. The oldest was staring blankly in shock.
Thorne knew he should have done more. Two and a half decades of trying to stop this disaster, and he couldn’t even slow it.
Thorne turned his head over to see Hunter, his little brother, move to comfort the youngest. His name was Gus, and Thorne had met him when he and Hunter were on the run. He was a smart kid, a prodigy and a talented illusionist, but he was still little. This must have been horrifying for him.
Luz finally walked down the steps of the abandoned house that had been a portal to an entirely other realm moments ago. There was no doubt that she was blaming herself for this. She had wandered into our realm and set off a chain of events that did, in all technicality, cause this to happen. Alas, Thorne also had no doubt that the false emperor would have found a way, with or without her.
“Come on,” she said, voice blank. “My mom’s house is just over there,”
She walked ahead without another word. The first to follow was the witch her age- her name was Amity, and Thorne had known her for a long time- even taught her some lessons in abomination magic. She had come very far since then. Now, she had started a romantic relationship with the human. Thorne was happy for them, though it made his heart ache for the husband he had left back home.
Next was the oldest witch. Hunter had talked about her non-stop since he had met her for the first time. Captain , he called her. Her real name was Willow. She, too, reminded Thorne of his husband- skilled in plant magic, smart, and confident. Hunter liked her. Thorne could tell. He wasn’t sure if Hunter could- he wasn’t sure if he knew what a crush is at all.
After them, Hunter helped Gus stand up, keeping a protective arm around him. Thorne followed closely behind them, trying not to hover too close, but not too far.
“Hey, mom. I'm home,”
Everyone was silent.
~~~
“Oh, Mr. Thorne, you're still awake!” Luz’s mom had chuckled once the dust had settled. “All of the kids nearly collapsed, they're all exhausted. I assumed you would be, too.”
“I am.”
“Oh?” Camila asked, frowning. “I already told you that you can take the couch, cariño.”
”Oh, I know, I know, it’s… it’s a ‘me’ problem. Thank you though, Ma’am.”
The woman chuckled. “My, you’re just as bad as your brother! ‘Camila’ is fine.” She paused. “The other blonde boy is your brother? Did I get that right?”
Thorne scoffed softly with a smile, nodding.
“You two look so alike. As if you were clones,” Camila joked, laughing softly to herself. Thorne cringed, but hid it from his host with a nod. “What’s the age difference? You seem a little older-“
“Twenty-nine,”
”Sorry?”
“I was twenty-nine when he was born. I’m forty-five now, he’s sixteen.”
Camila stared at me, dumbfounded, and Thorne quickly remembered that humans had shorter life spans than most species on the Boiling Isles. “Oh, that’s… that’s a normal age gap for siblings in the Demon Realm.”
Thorne left out the fact that they also had thirty-five other brothers that had died before either of them had existed, or that their ‘species’ wasn’t supposed to exist anymore, and that they were the only two left alive.
“I- pardon his shock. You just look… great for your age!” Camila smiled nervously.
“I get that a lot. I don’t mind.” Thorne was aware that he aged slowly, and he assumed it was a grimwalker thing when he noticed that Hunter did, too. It wasn’t too noticeable in the Isles, especially for a “half-demon.” Yet for a human or a few witches, Thorne looked barely old enough to drink alcohol.
Grimwalkers are freaks, technically. They look like dem-witches (part-witch, part-demon.) But they aren’t either- grimwalkers are technically part plant, part animal, and simultaneously neither. They’re a different classification altogether. If the species hadn't gotten hunted to extinction, it would be less strange to say. They were created, not born. They were intended to be clones when Thorne, Hunter, and their various predicessors were made by a madman way after their extinction- something grimwalkers, by species, aren’t ‘intended’ to be.
Hunter wasn't taking it well. Thorne wished there had been a better way to tell him.
“Why not get some sleep?” Camila asked me. “You’re safe here.”
“It’s nothing, ma’am- erm, Camila.”
In that moment of silence, Thorne heard the soft clicking of an opening door. There were no footsteps following the sound, so Thorne knew who it was.
”Everything alright, Hunter?” He called.
”I- yes. I’m just… Can I get your help with something?” Hunter’s tail coiled around his own leg nervously, but his voice was even and confident- as always. He was a good kid- a strong kid. Thorne respected that.
“Sure,” Thorne finished his drink and set the mug down, quietly padding over to where his brother was standing. “What’s going on?”
“Uhm… nothing. Can you just… follow?” He winced, descending down the stairs into the basement he and Gus had set up a makeshift bedroom inside. Thorne followed behind him, concerned about his problem.
“ What’s going on, Hunter ?” Thorne pressed.
“Nothing! Promise!” Hunter whined. “Gus is sleeping. Be quiet. Please .”
“So what did you need?”
Hunter stiffened a little, face flushing. “I…”
Thorne watched him quietly, patiently.
“I couldn’t sleep…” He admitted. He scowled, looking away from his brother. Thorne knew what was going on- Hunter felt too dependent on him, thought it made him weak. It didn’t, but he wouldn’t hear that from Thorne. He was an independent kid that stopped for nothing, but if that sociopath of a man hadn’t-
Thorne cleared his throat. “Alright. I’ll stay with you.”
Hunter’s eyes softened and he looked relieved. “I… Thanks, Thorne.”
“Of course. I don’t have anything to do, anyway.” Thorne chuckled, watching Hunter curl back up on his sleeping bag. Thorne sat down next to him, letting Hunter put his head in his lap. “Is there anything specific keeping you from sleeping?”
“Thorne, we’re in a completely different realm. It’s practically a different world. My entire life has been turned upside down in the span of… what, a month?”
Thorne winced and looked away. He was right. He wanted to scream and cry for forgiveness he already had, but the way he had been uprooted from all he’d ever known made Thorne feel awful. He should have found a better way.
”Uncle was right, though.”
This time, Thorne grimaced. “What do you mean?”
”The trees are green, and the nights are… quiet. He told me stories about this place once. He had told me he had visited the Human Realm before, but I didn’t know that meant he was… born here.”
“He lied about… just about everything, Hunter. He made us, and made us wrong , for Titan’s sake, just to have control over us. He didn't think of us as people, much less his actual nephews. He lied. ”
“Not about this , though!” Hunter hissed. It was clear that even after everything he had done, Hunter still missed their uncle, Belos, to some degree. Thorne couldn’t blame him, really- he had been raised that way.
“Sorry,” Thorne muttered, stroking his hair.
Thorne had done everything he could.
”I just… I don’t know what to do.” his brother sighed. “I… you told me stories about how grimwalkers were monsters for my entire childhood, and then you just go and tell me that it’s all wrong and we’re grimwalkers?”
”If you found out, Belos would have killed us both. They had to be inaccurate so you didn’t look in the mirror and start having questions.”
”I… yeah.” Hunter sighed, a slight growl in his voice. “Can… Can you tell me some accurate stories about grimwalkers?”
“I guess you deserve that, yeah?” Thorne characteristicly hummed, and started talking. At some point, Hunter’s breathing had stilled- Thorne tucked him into his pile of blankets and went back upstairs, smiling over his shoulder. He decided that he should sleep as well. He deserved it, after all.
Time went by quickly. The group was given new clothes, food, shelter, and Thorne couldn’t help but notice the way that Luz’s friends were starting to relax more and more around his brother. Not him, but his reputation of having no control over his violent temper preceded him. Breaking into the portal room to fight Belos, intending to kill, probably didn’t help with that.
But they were starting to trust Hunter- see him as one of their own. That was good. That was very, very good. Hunter needed friends his age, and it made Thorne smile. Maybe just seeing it happen was enough for him.
“Mister Thorne?”
Thorne looked down to see Gus smiling up at him.
“Hey, what’s up?” Thorne chuckled. Gus held up a book for him.
“Hunter reaaally liked this comic. I know he probably won’t admit it to you, so I think he reaaally wants you to read it and talk to you about it.”
“Really?” Thorne asked, turning the book over in his hand. “‘ Cosmic Frontier’ ? I think I heard about this when I was a kid. Eda probably found a copy looking through human trash and I heard it that way. Never read it, though."
“Well, Hunter loves it. I mean, so do I, it’s the most awesomest thing ever made, but-”
”I’ll read it,” Thorne chucked., patting the kid’s shoulder gently. “Thank you, Gus.”
Gus grinned, skipping away back to where his friends were decorating the old house. Thorne looked over his shoulder and watched him leave before taking a seat on a sofa chair, opening the book delicately. It was, indeed, quite good- Thorne found himself reading his way through the entire box of comics Gus and Hunter had found.
~~~
“Hey, kiddo. What’cha working on?”
Hunter looked to the top of the stairs where his brother was watching with a smile. “Oh! Camila taught me how to use this sewing contraption! I’m using it to make an outfit!”
Thorne’s eyebrow raised as he looked at the whirring machine. “Sewing? I didn’t know you had any interest in sewing.”
“Well, I tried to put that sigil on your cloak on my cloak once… Darius said the stitches were bad and I needed a lesson, but we never managed to-”
“You could have asked me. I love to sew,”
“R-really? I thought you just used magic,”
Thorne shook his head. “No, I do it by hand. I taught Darius.”
“ Really ?”
“Mhm. To be fair, he had some decent skill before I mentored him. But yeah, I have hobbies,” Thorne teased as he made his ways down the stairs, ruffling Hunter’s hair. “I’ve never saved up enough for a sewing machine before.”
“We have these back at home?”
“They work differently I bet- ours are run by magic, after all- but it’s the same idea. ‘Never learned how to use one.” Thorne pulled over a chair to watch his little brother work. “Is this… Chief Engineer O’Bailey’s uniform? From ‘ Cosmic Frontier ?’”
Hunter slowed the machine and looked over at Thorne in shock. “How did you know that?”
“Gus recommended the books to me. The… clone character, who betrays his planet when he learns they’re planning on violently colonizing other planets. That’s what you’re making, right?”
Thorne watched as Hunter’s face flushed red. “I… yeah…” he muttered, tail flicking.
“Hey, don’t be embarrassed.” Thorne chuckled. “It’s fine to really like something.”
“I didn’t say I really liked-”
“Gus told me, Hunter. Even if he didn’t, I’ve seen you talk about it with him. You can talk to me about it, you know. I mean, when you were fifteen, you and I talked about Ruler’s Reach for hours. ”
“That wasn’t very long ago.”
“Well, you’ll be seventeen in a month or two.”
“Okay… okay. I just… relate to O’Bailey, you know? Someone who thought he was good, but he wasn’t, and he’s trying so hard to gain their trust.”
“You already have your friend’s trust, Hunter.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” Thorne doubled down. “I’ve noticed it. They relax around you now. Even the Blight ki- Amity. Even Amity, and your relationship with her was strained for a while.”
“Oh. Well, I guess that Captain Avery was okay with O’Bailey being a clone… but how do I know the others will think that? I know grimwalkers aren’t clones, but to be fair, O’Bailey’s cloning was-”
Hunter started to ramble about the series and Thorne gladly listened.
“Do you think that the enemy planet came up with the cloning process themselves, or that they got it from somewhere else?” Thorne asked.
“I’ve thought about that! It’s hard to tell because it hasn’t been talked about much, but judging that they steal from a lot of other planets, I wouldn’t put it out of the question!” Hunter laughed. He looked down at his work. “Damn… how will I get the patch on?”
“Oh!” Thorne’s ears perked up. “I could embroider it for you.”
Hunter’s eyes lit up. “Will you… teach me? I mean, I want to make a costume for Gus, too. He likes Captain Avery.”
“Sure. Only if you teach me how to use the sewing machine.” Thorne smiled. “So… Gus’ favorite is Avery, and yours is O’Bailey, right?”
“Yeah! Who’s your favorite?”
“Hmm… I particularly like Doctor Jayson Codeman.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Thorne smiled. “Hand over that suit, let me show you how to embroider.”
~~~
Thorne stared up at the ceiling painted dark blue in the lack of light. He had been able to sleep for all the months staying here, but tonight, he wasn’t able to calm his racing heart.
He rarely had nightmares. Nightmares by his standards, anyway. He wasn’t scared by much, and he wasn’t hurt by much. Yet, that night he had dreamt of what would have happened if he wasn’t able to save Hunter from Belos in time. It was bloody. He had woken up and instantly realized it was fake, but his anxiety wouldn’t leave him.
He groaned, rising from the couch. He stalked to the kitchen, though he found nothing he was willing to eat or drink.
His hands were shaking. His breath was uneven.
He wanted to go down and check on Hunter. Thorne hated that- he knew Hunter was okay. He knew that. He didn’t want to be overbearing or overprotective, Hunter hated being treated like that.
He paced. And he paced. And he paced.
“Thorne..?”
Hunter was closing the basement door, frowning with concern.
“Oh, uh- hah- I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
“I didn’t ask,” Hunter countered. “What’s going on? You don't seem okay,”
Thorne kept himself calm for an admirable moment before bursting into sobs, pulling Hunter into his arms. The boy seemed to be shocked, but hugged back with a small squeeze.
“I- I’m sorry, I just- I had a nightmare, and- I was just-”
“Hey, it’s okay,”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”
“Thorne…”
“I can’t do this, Hunter, I- I’ve been trying to stay calm but I’m so scared! What- what if Basil…”
“They’re okay. They have to be,”
“But- But what if they’re not, Hunter?! We have no idea what’s happening! And- and if something happens to you or- or happens to Basil, what- what am I supposed to do with myself?!”
“Thorne…!”
“I’m so sorry, Hunter…”
Thorne knew Hunter didn’t know what to do. He felt bad for making him witness him like this. He stood up, pulling away from his brother and sitting on the couch, burying his face in his hands.
“Thorne, wait, please,” Hunter whined, following. He went to speak again, but couldn’t find anything to say.
“I fucked up,” Thorne whispered. “I fucked up so bad. I should have done more to stop this, then you all wouldn’t be trapped here, fuck, fuck , I fucked up so bad…”
“Thorne, can…” Hunter took a deep breath. “I’m going to show you what Gus taught me okay? Breathe in,” He counted to four on his fingers- “and out,” He counted back down. Thorne attempted to follow, and Hunter repeated it until he could breathe normally.
“I’m sorry I freaked out like that, little one.” Thorne muttered. “I’ve just been… stressed.”
“I’ve been stressed, too.” Hunter muttered. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… I think so. Thank you for… uh, for helping me. I don’t know what got into me, kiddo. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize!” Hunter snapped. “It’s not your fault. You taught me that whenever I have panic attacks!”
Thorne chuckled, ruffling Hunter’s hair. “I love you, Hun. You know that, right?”
Hunter was silent for a moment.
“Of course,” He muttered softly before he slumped into Thorne’s side. “Can I stay up here with you tonight?”
“Do you think I’d say no?”
“I don’t know, I just felt like I had to ask.”
Thorne grinned. “Com’ere,” he hissed playfully, pulling Hunter into his arms as he layed back onto the couch. Hunter yelped, but laughed and settled down in his brother’s embrace.
“Yeah,” Hunter confirmed with a whisper. “I love you, too.”