Darius gulped nervously as the Bat Queen stared him down.
"State your business here," she demanded. Dozens, maybe hundreds of pairs of glowing eyes watched Darius keenly from the shadows of the woods.
"I..." Darius cleared his throat and pointed to the sleeping boy behind her. "I'm just here to retrieve Hunter. He ran off, we've been searching for hours-"
"No."
"What?! What do you mean no, that's my kid. I'm responsible for him now!" Darius whisper shouted. He didn't want to risk waking Hunter, who was getting possibly the best sleep of his life, or the three smaller bats that were curled up around him.
"Not anymore. My boy."
"Wha- you can't do that, that's absurd! He can't live here in the woods. How will he get to school?"
"I fly him. If he even want to go back."
"Hunter loves school."
"He and Flapjack tell me all when I find them. He run into the woods crying, the witches at school are horribly cruel. None of you deserve him, he stay here now."
Darius sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I thought you guarded palismen, not teenage boys."
"He is made of palistrom wood. He is different. He feels broken. I keep him safe. Unlike you," the Bat Queen turned away. "You never did."
Okay, ouch, Darius thought. She wasn't exactly wrong. He never was able to get Hunter out of harm's way under Belos's reign. The kid had suffered, and he hadn't even known half of it. Thinking of it made him sick to his stomach. But he was doing better now, right? Hunter was happy living with him.
Right?
"I do now. And I will for the rest of my life, to the best of my abilities. I-" Darius hesitated, then heaved another sigh. "Just let me take him home, please?"
"No. This is home now. He will not have to feel sad and weird, no one will hurt him."
It seemed that the Bat Queen thought the discussion was over. She turned away. Panicking, Darius shouted, "What do I have to do? I'll do anything, just- please let him have another chance out there."
"There is only one way," the Bat Queen said. She whirled around again, and her babies opened their eyes, squirming away from Hunter to flock to their mother and hiss menacingly. "You must pass the trials."
It was very easy to be confident until he accidentally looked the spider demon in the eyes.
When running for his life, Darius started to doubt if he could ever pass these trials. At least Hunter was sleeping through this embarrassing ordeal, with Flapjack settled under his chin, watching Darius with one sleepy little eye.
At long last, he presented the results of his first trial. The Bat Queen barely nodded before assigning the next.
The second one was worse if that was even possible. He really should have listened better when Eberwolf talked about fire bees. Darius couldn't remember the last time he'd run like this. He was getting out of shape. The end of the emperor's reign was making him soft.
"Darius?" Hunter finally sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What are you doing here?"
He didn't miss the note of panic in the boy's voice. "What does it look like?" Darius asked, trying to sound casual even though he was out of breath, throwing up another abomination wall to slow the hive down. "I'm running from fire bees."
"Worry not, child, they not come near you," the Bat Queen assured Hunter. "This his trial."
"Trial? For what, why?"
"To take you home," Darius said, managing to grab ahold of one nest and summoning an abomination to punt it deep into the forest. "Finally, " he sighed.
Hunter glanced up at the Bat Queen, his ears tucked close to his skull. "I probably should get home," he said softly. "I shouldn't have run away."
"No. You safe here, you stay as long as you need. I keep everyone safe."
"Yes, you did, and thank you for that," Hunter shifted from foot to foot awkwardly. "But I think I should go back."
The Bat Queen frowned. "I do not trust him. He let you get hurt." Darius glanced over upon hearing this, fresh guilt welling up.
"Well, sometimes it was good for me. Like this scar," Hunter pointed to his face. "I learned a valuable lesson that day. No interrupting." He smiled proudly, oblivious to the disturbed expressions of the adults around him.
"Titan, this weekend's therapy session cannot come soon enough," Darius muttered. "Anyways, I passed your trials. Haven't I proven myself worthy to take him back?"
"Not yet. More trials."
"But ma'am-" Hunter tried to say, but he was cut off when he was wrapped up in a blanket of fuzzy moss.
"You sit with bird. He not done."
"Alright, bring it on then," Darius growled, feeling exhaustion starting to settle in and trying to fight it.
"Give babies bath."
"What?" His confidence immediately plummeted.
The three grubby babies shuffled forward, flashing Darius pointy smiles with small animal bits stuck in their teeth.
"Give babies bath."
Hunter watched, shocked, as Darius took a deep breath and rolled up his sleeves.
You can change when you get home you can change when you get home
Ew ew ew some of the water got in my mouth.
This is the worst
It took everything in Darius not to say these things out loud. He tried to look completely stoic, not disgusted, as he wrestled each of the bat babies into the wash basin. Hunter looked on with the crowd of chattering palismen, biting his thumbnail. He let out a shaky sigh, rubbing his face again to get the tear tracks off.
That had been possibly the longest cry of his life.
It started when he reached his breaking point at school. The stupid argument he had had with Darius that morning quietly simmered in his brain. He didn't even know the names of the kids who had surrounded him that day, laughing and asking invasive questions about him being a grimwalker. His head had started to pound and he got away on Flapjack. Then someone had called him... that thing.
The name that made a shiver run down his spine, and brought to mind the vivid memory of those cracked masks.
He had fled to the woods, unable to stop himself from breaking down and ugly crying. Then the Bat Queen had found him, and her comforting words only made him cry more as he babbled about not being real. She eventually recognized that he was made of palismen wood, and took him under her wing while he breathed his way through his anxiety attack. Flapjack assured him she was nice. He ended up telling her a lot more than he'd planned. She was just so warm and welcoming, and palismen flew and crawled from the shadows to curl up in his lap and whisper little comforting things into his mind.
Stay.
We take care of you.
It's okay.
Tired.
Yes, he looks so tired
Sleep, boy of wood, you're safe here.
No awful people.
Hadn't he been hunting them months and months ago? Nervously presenting them to his uncle, burying the helpless guilt that made him lie awake at night instead of sleeping. Now they gathered around him and considered him one of their own. That only made him cry harder until he couldn't breathe. He could have been crying for thirty minutes, or it might have been hours. He wasn't even sure when he had drifted off to sleep.
I might not have stayed if I knew Darius would have to do all this, he thought. What if Darius was mad at him when they got home because of this? What if he gave up on the trials and didn't want Hunter anymore? Maybe he would think good riddance because he'd been stuck taking care of Hunter for so long. Maybe this was more trouble than he was worth-
"Done." Darius set the last bat baby down. He leaned over to crack his back and heaved yet another sigh. "Now, for the love of Titan, can I have my kid back?"
"You have done well. One last trial."
Darius bit back a groan.
"You must face me."
At this point, Hunter halfway expected the man to turn around and say nevermind. This really was too much, and all to get back the most useless person ever-
"Alright. Let's go, then."
Flapjack chirped in alarm, fluttering up to the Bat Queen.
"What? Yes, I learned from the Owlbert experience, but he's different. This not a one-time thing. His whole life people mistreat him, not just once," she said angrily.
"It's- it's different," Hunter spoke up. "It's different now. I'm okay to go back. Trust me."
Flapjack landed on Hunter's shoulder, twittering, feathers puffed up in defiance.
"If he can face me, he can take the boy. One more trial."
"It's fine, Hunter. I'll do it."
Hunter's eyes watered, and he felt his nose already starting to get runny. "You don't have to, if it's too much- I don't- it's okay. I'll stay."
"What do you mean, too much?"
"Why are you doing all this?"
"Because-" Darius sputtered, "because- I thought you wanted to go back with me? If that's not what you want, then you can tell me-"
"No! I mean yes, I- I want to go back, please don't leave me." Hunter could feel his breathing starting to get out of control.
"Hey, I'm not leaving you. Breathe. If you want to come back, why don't you want me to finish the trial?"
"It's- I don't know. Maybe you'll regret putting in all this effort for a kid that's not even yours and who isn't even real. It wasn't hard for you to hate me before, I'm scared- that maybe you'll start hating me again."
Darius's posture sank. He looked shocked. "I never- no, I could never hate you, Hunter. For a long time, I couldn't feel anything. I was stuck, and it- it kept me from being there for you. And it hurt you. I can't deny that anymore. I'm going to try to make up for every year that I didn't do right by you, okay? So no, this is not too much. Not by a long shot. It's worth it to keep you."
Hunter sniffed, not bothering the wipe the tears that collected by his jaw.
"Do you understand? It's never going to be too much. And I'll never regret doing this. Plus Camila would kill me if I left you here, you know that, right? She's expecting you this weekend." Darius tried to joke with a straight face, but a small smile slipped into his expression.
The boy laughed through his tears, then darted forward. This time he wasn't stopped, and Darius braced himself. Not well enough, it seemed, because the hug knocked him clean off his feet.
"Sorry," Hunter mumbled.
"It's fine, it's okay. This is fine." He was already a mess. It wouldn't hurt to sit on the forest floor for a while.
They heard another sniff, and glanced over to find the Bat Queen tearing up.
"Shut up! I am not crying! On an unrelated note, you should get boy home."
"Really?" Darius asked.
"Before I change mind. And know this: I will take him back if need be."
Flapjack chirped, headbutting the Bat Queen affectionately.
"Yes, you keep an eye on him. Both of you stay safe. Visit soon."
"I promise I will, ma'am," Hunter nodded, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.
"She kidnapped you?!" Mrs. Noceda turned, shocked. Vee's eyes were wide as she stared at her brother.
"And you made it out alive?! You aren't a ghost, are you?" Vee reached out and squished Hunter's cheeks.
"No. And she had good intentions," Hunter hastily amended. "Darius got me back."
"He completed all the trials?" Luz took off her hat and tossed it on the table, looking disbelieving. "Well. That's actually impressive. He got past the spider demon? He even fought her?"
"How do you know what the trails are?" Hunter narrowed his eyes.
"I- um, I heard through the grapevine," Luz coughed, glancing at the floor with a slightly guilty expression. "Anyways, this is about you, not me." Hunter filed this away for later. The stories that Luz didn't tell her mom were always the most entertaining.
"Well, technically he never got around to fighting her because we changed her mind after the other ones. But he did all the other ones even though they were kinda gross."
Camila snorted. "He'd better be glad he did. If he didn't bring you to me in one piece on Friday..."
All three kids glanced at her sandals by the door and knew that those words weren't empty.
"Anyways, I'm glad you're okay. And therapy went well?" Camila reached over to ruffle Hunter's hair, and he leaned into the contact.
"Mhm, it did. It wasn't as scary as I thought."
