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I know it took me a while to update (again), but my grandpa died recently, and I just haven't felt like posting this. I really decided to post this today because the new episode is airing tonight, but honestly, I'm not proofreading this before I post, so hopefully there aren't too many errors.

This chapter's song is: 'Good For You' from Dear Evan Hansen.

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"So You Found a Place Where the Grass is Greener,

And You Jumped the Fence to the Other Side."

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.

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"HUNTER, IT'S TIME FOR SCHOOL!"

"HOLY F-! Luz! I'm already up! I've been up!" Hunter yelled as Luz slammed his bedroom door open.

"Ooooooh. Sorry. Wait," Luz apologized before her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did you sleep?"

Hunter grimaced.

"I think you know by now that I never sleep."

"Hunter, you're going to be tired in all of your classes!"

"I've done a lot worse while I'm tired. Believe me, I'm used to it."

"Hm, alright, well, we should probably get going, so grab Rascal and let's go!"

"…"

"What?"

"… You might want to change out of your pajama pants first."

"No, I- Ah, dang it."

Hunter chuckled.

"Relax, we still have, like, an hour before school starts."

"Yeah, but I want to introduce you to my friends."

"But I've already met your friends?"

"Well, technically, you haven't met all of my friends. Just Amity, Gus, and Willow."

"… There's more?"

"What do you- Of course there's more! I'm extremely friendly!"

XXX

In the end, they got to school about 20 minutes before the bell rang for class, which wasn't as much time as Luz had apparently been hoping for, but it was still early enough for Hunter to hopefully be able to find where his first class would be.

He felt strange. Last night, he'd been so excited that he hadn't been able to sleep, except then he started to feel anxious from the lack of sleep. And that anxiety hadn't really gone away. It had dulled by the time that sunlight was filtering in through the windows, but it was still there.

And now, it was back with a vengeance.

This isn't a big deal. It's just school. You've dealt with so much worse and come out fine (mostly). You should be excited. You wanted to do this.

Giddy with excitement, Luz pulled him over to where a bunch of her friends were gathered.

"Hey, guys!" Luz greeted.

"Hey, Luz," someone Hunter didn't recognize returned the greeting.

This was followed by a chorus of other greetings, voices overlapping so that Hunter couldn't tell exactly who said what.

"Alright! So, I've gathered you all here today to introduce you to… Eda's… cousin!" Luz announced, fumbling at the end as she almost forgot the cover story they were going with. "Um, he's technically Eda's first cousin once removed, but it's easier to just say he's her cousin. Yup."

Hunter was half a second away from just plain leaving, though he wasn't sure if it was because he was nervous or because this introduction was already a mess.

"Sooooooo, this is Hunter!" Luz exclaimed, making jazz hands at him.

"Um. Hi?" he said flatly.

"You've already met Amity, Willow, and Gus," Luz continued. "But this is Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus!"

Each named student waved back at him, and Hunter hated it, but Rascal chirped back at them in his stead.

"Huh. You look really different now," Gus pointed out.

Hunter tensed, and he could see Luz begin to panic a bit as well. Had she told her friends that the fact that he used to be the Golden Guard was meant to be a secret? Because there would be a big problem if that started spreading around the school.

"Ah, well, you know how it is! New school, new look!" Luz chuckled nervously.

Suddenly, Hunter felt an arm lean on his unoccupied shoulder.

He didn't flinch.

He actually kind of wished he did, because that would have been better than his actual response.

No, instead of flinching, which probably would have been considered normal under the circumstances, Hunter whirled around, grabbed whoever was touching him, and knocked them to the ground with a hard kick to the shin.

"Ow! Ffffffffffffuuuu…."

It took Hunter a few seconds to realize what he did, and once he processed it, his mind screamed with horror. His first day hadn't even started yet, and he'd already messed up. He was going to get in trouble, and even if he didn't, everyone would know him as the freak who beat someone up for barely touching them. What if that caught someone's attention, and they got suspicious?

Why couldn't he just do something right for once?

All of Luz's friends silently stared at the scene, stared at him and the kid he'd knocked to the ground.

And then, a girl with long, green hair started laughing.

"Pffffft, HAHAHA! He really got you, Ed!"

Hunter blinked.

Why was she laughing?

"Oh, for- what are you two even doing?"

Amity had stepped forward, and she was now glaring at the two green-haired teens.

"Aw, we just wanted to wish you luck on the first day of the new semester, Mittens," the girl replied between laughs. "But this is much better."

"You're cold, Em."

Mittens? Who the hell…

"So, who's this?" the girl asked finally. "I've never seen him around before."

Amity sighed, pinching her nose.

"Hunter. He started living with Eda recently."

"Ooooo, did Eda kidnap another kid?" the ground boy asked as he stood up and dusted himself off.

"Whaaaaat? No, he's Eda's cousin!" Luz insisted.

"Hm, sounds suspicious. I bet she kidnapped you."

That broke Hunter out of his shock enough to respond.

"Yup, I was kidnapped."

That didn't mean his response was good.

"Hunter!"

"What? I was."

Luz then covered his mouth.

"Hahaaaaa, he sure does like to joke. Nope, he has his parents' full permission to stay with Eda!"

Oh, right. Their cover story. He'd been too busy panicking about accidentally beating someone up to remember that people didn't typically kidnap their cousins. Well, at least Luz fixed it so it sounded more like Hunter had been kidnapped from his parents rather than from the emperor.

Regardless, Hunter still licked Luz's hand, and she let out a short, shrill shriek before pushing him away.

"Oh, it's fine, we get it," the ground boy continued as if the two of them hadn't just done all that. "Anyway, I'm Edric, and my cruel twin sister is Emira. You apparently already know our younger, crueler sister."

Oh. The Blight Twins.

"You two are insufferable."

Ignoring Amity, the ground boy reached out a hand, which Hunter stared at distrustfully.

"Aw, come on, I don't bite."

"Yeah, I just kicked you, so I'm not trusting you to not take revenge."

"Eh, it was his own fault," the green girl, Emira, said with a shrug. "This dumbass needs to learn about personal space."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

Hunter stared at them, narrowing his eyes.

"Luz, why is everyone you know so weird?"

This made Luz smack herself in the forehead. That made Hunter grin.

"Hey, she knows you too," Amity pointed out.

Of course, Hunter replied with a glare.

That was when the first bell rang, and Hunter realized that he hadn't left to find his first class yet.

"Damn it. Do any of you know where room 667 is?"

"Ooooo, I can show you!" Ground Boy offered.

Hunter couldn't stop himself from grimacing, but he really needed to get to class on time. So, with reluctance, he accepted the boy's offer.

XXX

"Soooooo," Edric asked. "Where are you from, then, since you just moved in with Eda?"

Hunter considered not answering, but the boy was doing him a favor by helping him get to class, and he had kicked him pretty hard, so he figured he should at least answer a basic question.

"Latissa."

Which was a lie, of course, but he'd been to Latissa often enough that he would know some basic information if anyone asked. Plus, it was close enough to justify why he was living with Eda while also being far away enough that no one would bother checking if anything he said was a lie or not.

"Cool," the other boy hummed. "So, did you move so you could go to Hexside?"

Hunter shrugged, and a few seconds of strained silence passed between them.

"… So, I know we were joking around earlier, but did Eda actually kidnap you?" Edric questioned. "Not judging if she did, but, like, do your parents know where you are?"

"I don't have parents," Hunter replied.

He didn't, and it was probably better to mix some truth into his story where he could so he had less details to remember. He'd spent most of his life thinking his parents had been killed when he was a child, anyway, so it shouldn't be too hard to pretend his parents were dead rather than just nonexistent.

"Oh. But I thought Luz said…," the green-haired boy trailed off, before his expression shifted to shock. "Wait, did your parents just die?!"

Hunter was pretty sure that the boy was being insensitive if they had. But as it was, Hunter just shot him a vaguely annoyed look.

"No. They died when I was younger," he explained. "I've been living with a different relative… And now I live with Eda."

"… Is there a reason why?"

"None that's any of your business."

Most of Hunter's annoyance was genuine, as he didn't really like that this boy was being nosy. At the same time, though, it was an opportunity to start establishing his fabricated backstory, and perhaps playing into his normal reluctance to open up could help him with not needing to get too complicated with it.

"Well, alright then," Edric shrugged, brushing it off. "Anyway, there's your classroom. My class is next door, so if you need help finding your next class, you know where to find me."

This random kindness somewhat surprised Hunter, leaving him almost-speechless.

"Oh. Thanks."

And then, the boy shot him a grin and waltzed into his classroom, leaving Hunter to enter his own.

XXX

Hunter's first day of school had been… complicated. On the one hand, he really was excited to actually have something to do during the day, and he wanted to learn more about magic (even if he couldn't do all of it with Rascal quite yet).

He'd been put into mostly basic-level junior classes for anything that required magic, seeing as he'd told the principal he could only do magic with glyphs or a staff. That… admittedly stung his pride a bit, since he'd been considered a prodigy before, but he had expected it. Even with his artificial staff, he still hadn't been able to cast spell circles like other witches, which likely would have landed him in the same boat had he not been tutored within the castle. He was, however, put into honors classes for the non-magical classes, so at least people wouldn't think he's too much of an idiot.

And then there were the other students. Aside from Luz's friends, most people seemed to have one of two reactions to him: not notice he was there, or start doing the whole 'new kid routine' that he'd gotten tired of before Edric had even done it. The people who did it would always approach him with some weird smile, ask if he was new, and then start trying to delve into his privacy as soon as he confirmed he was. A lot of them would offer to let him ask them questions or make some claim about them becoming friends, and that annoyed Hunter more than anything else. These people had no idea who he was, and they were being so pushy.

Though, part of his mind did recognize he was being a bit harsh in his annoyance. Really, they were just being polite, and he was grumpy from not sleeping at all the night before. And apparently, other people being pushy was the only way he made friends, considering that Luz was probably the first person to even really try in a long time, and it still took him getting half-kidnapped to even begin to accept her friendship.

Despite being reminded that he actually hated interacting with people without his mask, the actual classes were pretty interesting. There was a lot of introduction-type material for the start of a new semester, but he knew they would be getting into real stuff eventually. He'd even been able to make a potion in one of his classes (the teacher had wanted everyone else to review a potion they'd learned last semester, and it just so happened to be one he'd been taught at the palace).

All-in-all, by the end of the day, he was in a relatively-okay mood. Not great, but he could definitely be a lot worse, and the next day would almost certainly be better.

"Hunter!" Luz called out as she saw him exit the building.

She waited for him to come a little closer before she continued.

"I'm going to go hang out with Gus and Willow, but I wanted to ask how your day went first," she explained.

"Fine," Hunter replied with a shrug. "I made a potion that's supposed to make things float."

"Oooooooh, really?

Hunter removed the bottle from his pocket. The teacher explained that they usually wouldn't be allowed to take a potion like that home with them ('too dangerous', apparently), but they would need it for their homework.

Luz tilted her head at it.

"Huh. It just looks like water."

Hunter couldn't help the small smile that spread onto his face.

"That's the cool part, actually!" he told her. "It's colorless and flavorless, so you could use it without anyone knowing what you did! I mean, it's in a labeled bottle now, but you could pour it into something else as long as it won't be affected by the potion itself. Like, you could keep some in a hollow necklace pendant and use it to escape in a pinch or something as long as you had another potion to reverse the effects. It can also be used on someone else, so if you, like, flung it at somebody or poured some into their drink, they wouldn't even know until they were already floating. Well, unless they use their own spells to check if anything got added in, but whatever. I used one on Kiki- Woah!"

For the second time that day, Hunter felt someone lean onto his shoulder from behind. This time, he did flinch, because his reactions just had to be whichever was most inconvenient at the time. An unfortunate side effect of the flinching was that Hunter lost his grip on the bottle, and he had to scramble to catch it before it hit the ground (or a person) and broke.

"Whatcha got there?"

Hunter shot a glare at the offender, and of course, found Edric standing there.

"Seriously?! I was literally explaining why this potion is dangerous, and you almost make me drop it?!"

Rascal peeked his head out of Hunter's bag, where he had spent most of the day. Seeing that nothing too serious was happening, however, he retreated back inside.

"Whoopsie?"

Hunter stared at the other boy incredulously.

"… If I didn't need this for my homework, I'd use it on you."

"Hunter," Luz said admonishingly. "That's not very nice."

"I'm not nice."

"Hunter."

He stuck his tongue out at the girl until he remembered that Edric was still standing there, apparently with a shit-eating grin on his face. Hunter let out an annoyed groan before turning his attention to the boy.

"Is there something you want, Ground Boy?"

The boy's smile faltered as a look of confusion crossed his face.

"Ground B-? Oh, 'cuz you knocked me on the ground."

"Dude, if you're gonna give people nicknames, they have to be better than that," Luz insisted.

"It's better than 'human'," Hunter shrugged.

"Wait, I thought you just called me that because you didn't know my name."

"Nope."

"…," Luz gave Hunter a short glare and then looked back at Edric. "Is there something you need, Ed? 'Cuz I should probably get going, and Hunter's grumpy."

"Ah, I just wanted to talk to GrumpyPants here," Edric answered, waving a hand at Hunter. "It's cool if you gotta go somewhere."

"Okay, I'll see you later, then," said Luz. "See you back at home, Hunter!"

And with that, Luz ran off, leaving Hunter alone with the other boy.

"Well, I'm leaving too, so byeeeeee," Hunter told him as he took a step to walk away.

Edric, however, seemed to have other ideas.

"Oh, wait!" he called out. "Are you doing anything right now?"

Hunter paused and turned back around, though he didn't come closer again quite yet.

"… Why?"

"Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out with me and Em," Edric offered. "I figured you wouldn't know a lot of people since you're new, and it seems like Luz is busy anyway."

Hunter frowned as he mulled it over.

He knew this Edric was trying to be nice, and really, he should probably be nice to him since he's related to Amity, and he didn't want to cause any conflict with her or Luz (or ignite Amity's wrath). At the same time, though, he was kind of annoying, and Hunter was pretty sure he'd continue to be annoying (and/or dangerous, if he was going to keep sneaking up behind him like that and ask him invasive questions). He mostly wanted to deny the offer. But. All things considered, he probably shouldn't be too rude.

"I don't know, I think Eda probably wants me back at the house," he replied, somewhat making up a reason why he couldn't go.

He actually wasn't sure whether Eda wanted him to go straight home or not. She hadn't told him to, but wandering around Bonesborough was more dangerous than being in the woods, usually, and Eda still seemed to prefer having someone watch him most of the time. He hadn't told her he was going anywhere after school (not like he really had anywhere to go), so she might think he ran off or did something. But did she really care that much (somewhere, a part of his brain answered that she did, but another part said she didn't)? Either way, it should be a good excuse to not have to deal with whatever Edric had planned.

"The Owl Lady? Dude, I doubt she of all witches is gonna get mad at you for doing something after school."

Or not.

It was true that Eda wasn't someone with strict expectations, though Edric obviously didn't know that Eda had other reasons for wanting to know where he was.

"Come ooooon, I promise it'll be fun!"

Hunter sighed. There was a good chance that he wasn't going to get out of this, even if he came up with another excuse. And running away would just make him look weird and suspicious, so it's not like he could do that.

"I get the feeling we don't have the same definition of 'fun'."

"But I didn't even say what we would be doing yet."

"My point still stands."

At this Edric rolled his eyes, though he was still smiling, which confused Hunter a bit.

"Just come on."

Then, Edric moved to grab his arm. Hunter dodged and shot him a glare.

"Right. Personal space. Sorry again."

"… I'll just follow you," Hunter sighed in defeat. "That work?"

"Yup!"

XXX