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Hunter swoops through the air high above the treeline among the clouds, golden guard mask safely stowed away as his freshly repaired cloak billows behind him. No one can see him up here, no one can hear his ecstatic whoops and neither can they judge him for neglecting his duties.
Well, he's not really neglecting his duties. This is just a small detour on his way home. If anything… this is special training! Yes! He's enhancing his flying skills with Flapjack just in case he finds himself without the artificial staff that Belos had so generously given him. (Hunter chooses not to think about the consequences of needing to resort to using Flapjack if Belos finds out. He's just doing some special training! That's all!)
Laughter carelessly tumbles from his lips and gets stolen by the wind, a secret between him and the sky. He feels the sun on his too pale skin, yet the stressful, sleepless nights that caused such pallor are forgotten in favour of his tumbling and twirling.
Diving down to barely above the treeline, he imagines he's playing flyer derby, weaving between his orange nettled opponents, dodging their lunging branches to grab five invisible flags. He hears the cheers from the Emerald Entrails' throats on the sidelines. And suddenly, he finds himself, thinking of the different types of words of congratulations that would leave Captain Willow Park's lips.
With dreams of praise clouding his judgement, Hunter suddenly has the urge to try something incredibly stupid. And he does so without a moment's hesitation.
Admittedly, when he remembers this moment, Hunter will have wished that just maybe he gave his actions some thought. After all, if he had, he wouldn't have impaled his shoulder on a protruding tree branch by back flipping into it at incredibly high speeds.
It takes Hunter a moment to register that Flapjack is not upside down as the red cardinal chirps and twitters around his face. Luckily, his legs are tangled in some higher branches and are supporting his weight since Hunter is the one that's upside down. In a tree. About... ten meters high? Yeah, that's about the right height for this particular tree.
Unluckily, it seems that he's been impaled.
Ha.
Ha.
He narrowly avoids becoming completely consumed and spiralling down a well of overwhelming panic as he cuts himself down, so despite his new injury perhaps he could consider this a win?
From the outside one would see a calm and collected child soldier, carefully and methodically cutting the branch that's stuck in his shoulder on both sides with the help of his palismen. Intentionally leaving the wound plugged by the wood to prevent himself from bleeding out and grunting in pain quietly every so often as he climbs down after expertly flipping himself right-side up.
However, on the inside thoughts swirl and storm in his head as he continues to fend off a full-blown panic attack in the middle of the forest- again, it hasn't gotten him yet so maybe he’s actually pretty lucky right now?
Taking carefully measured breaths, he tries to hold on to any good fortune he can as he thinks about how careless he was. Really, how could he have let himself get distracted like that? Getting lost in his thoughts while flying- he hasn't made that mistake since he was a coven scout in training! Of course he had to be reckless after foolishly letting himself become absorbed in his imaginary captain's praise, as if he’d ever earn such an honour again. Stupid. Stupid! Is he really as starved for compliments as Darius had teased? He can't get weak minded while thinking about being praised by just anyone! (Although admittedly, he can't consider Captain Willow Park just anyone-) Anyways! He just needs to work on himself more to earn the few scraps of praise that he can get... And no, this train of thought in no way proves that Darius is right or anything of the sorts.
Feet on the ground now and crunching through the foliage, he elects to take a quick peek at his mess up, having successfully calmed himself dow-
Well... At least his cloak didn't get stabbed through.
Panic is for the weak.
Panic gets good scouts killed.
Hunter reminds himself of this as he inspects how the branch miraculously managed to pierce through one of the gaps in his armour as Flapjack flutters and frets around him.
After reassuring his friend, he sets off, each footstep sending a spark of pain, expertly ignored along with the fact that there is a large hole in the front and back of his body.
Absentmindedly, he brushes the debris out of his hair and uniform as he goes, not willing to risk the Golden Guard being caught looking as dishevelled as he feels.
Darius's sewing lessons would have come in handy for almost everything else, but Hunter can't imagine being able to stitch up the back of his shoulder by himself like he usually would with most of his stupidly self-inflicted injuries.
Sighing in defeat, he vaguely hopes that he can find a healer who can keep quiet again since he'll have to genuinely worry about bleeding out if he doesn't go get proper medical attention. Especially since he doesn’t want to risk ruining another set of sheets during a botched surgery attempt like last time.
A small shiver creeps down his spine and his heartbeat speeds up just a touch when he thinks about how upset Belos would be if he finds out. More ruined sheets and wasting valuable medical resources! Hunter doesn't want to think about his Uncle’s utter disappointment at such a failure. He especially doesn't want to think about how he might cause the curse to flare up again due to his mistakes either, but the phantom pain from the scar on his cheek throbs anyways.
Still deciding between whether or not he can afford to draw suspicion by having to dispose of more bloodied bedsheets or to risk being tattled on by a healer, Hunter scratches his cheek, swallows down his nausea, and summons Flapjack's staff to head back to the castle.
"Caleb?"
He freezes right before he mounts his staff.
In a flash of gold, Hunter spins around and leans against the closest tree, arms folded with a leg propped up. Suave, cool, and casual. Definitely not in excruciating pain from what he just did. Not at all! Ha. Ha.
"Captainnn heyyy," his voice does not just crack, it does not, "What brings you out here on such a fine day?"
Of course, the answer should have been obvious at first glance with Willow decked out in her work out clothes and slightly sweaty, but his eyes refused to look at her for some strange reason at first. Probably the pain. Yeah.
"Working out. You?" she responds, raising an eyebrow as she takes in his appearance. Oh Titan, are there still twigs in his hair? At least Hunter can be grateful that his cloak is concealing his wound for now.
He can't help but tell her the truth.
"Special training with flapjack," he admits, melting out of his cool pose to stand as he normally would (not that he was posing to be cool, he stands like that all time!).
Willow tilts her head at Hunter, taking in the slight sheen of sweat on his brow and his ruffled hair, she supposes that makes sense, however his pale face and minutely shaky movements tug at the back of her mind.
Instead of giving in to that tug she asks him what's been on her mind for the past couple minutes instead, "Hey, did you happen to hear a noise earlier? Are you here to check it out too?"
Hunter, of course, is excruciatingly aware of the landing site not too far behind him. He is also excruciatingly aware of the consequences he faces when someone finds out he injured himself in a stupid way.
Hunter gives her a pained chuckle.
He shouldn't lie, he knows he especially shouldn't lie to his captain, not again...
But he also knows that he won’t be able to stand her disappointment in him right now.
And suddenly through his pained haze (hey, when did that get there?) he finds the answer.
He won't lie, he'll just... pretend. Yes! A little game of make-believe just between him and Willow. But also where Willow doesn't know it yet. Foolproof!
"Yeah! Weird right? I can't seem to find anything though. And there's definitely nothing at all behind me!" he exclaims.
"Weird I wonder what it was..." Willow mutters, a small pout gracing her lips, stumped.
It is at this point that Hunter becomes distinctly aware of the blood starting to leak down his shoulder. A quick glance down and yup.. he's able to see the smallest of red spots starting to bleed through his white cloak.
It is also at this point that Hunter feels a small, teeny tiny bubble of panic in his chest. He doesn't want to disappoint her, he can't let her know that he's hurt. He wants to stay-
He has to go.
"Captain, I would love to stay and chat some more, but I really have to get back," he says, a sheepish smile managing to slip out.
"Ahh I see. Will the great Golden Guard be in trouble if you're late?" she asks with a smirk.
Ah. There it is, the cold feeling of dread that douses him like ice water. He had been wondering where that went.
Hunter isn’t aware of the pained grimace that slips over his face as he murmurs his reply, "I'm probably already in trouble. I'm not supposed to be here."
He doesn't know why he says that. Why did he say that?? It must be the pain… or… or maybe could he be safe to open up to her?
His shoulder smarts.
Yup, nevermind. Definitely the pain.
As quickly and as carefully as he can, Hunter mounts his staff and prepares to take off until he is once again startled by Willow calling out to him.
"Hey Hunter! Flapjack is pretty cute, you should send me a picture sometime!"
Hunter stops and turns to her, eyes wide as he slowly blinks, not quite believing what he heard.
"And don't forget about flyerderby!” She continues with a radiant smile and a confident wink, “If you happen to be free in 49 weeks that is!"
"Uh sure," he says dumbly (Because of the pain! Remember! The pain!).
There's a pause, he could be gone by now, but Hunter can't help offering his own parting words and a wobbly smile, "I'll, uh, try not to kidnap you when I drop by then..."
Ugh stupid! Stupid! Why did he have to remind her of why she should hate him!
To his utter surprise Willow giggles, like he'd said something clever instead of something stupidly insane.
"I'm still sorry about that by the way," he mutters, just loud enough for Willow to catch, coughing awkwardly into his hand.
But before she has a chance to respond, he hurriedly dons his mask calling out an ‘Um, well- Byeeee!’ before shooting off in a streak of golden light.
Later that afternoon, Hunter successfully sneaks back into the castle, gets un-impaled and healed, with Willow none the wiser- a successful game of pretend.
Instead, she's left frowning in the forest having noticed a few small droplets of blood scattered in grass where he happened to be standing.