Chapter Twenty
"Wow, man. You said the three little words."
Hunter's cheeks burned against his will under the wide gaze of Gus, who had met him early at school to talk. Of all the members of Luz's flock of friends — honestly, it was Luz who brought them all together except Willow and Gus, and she had broken both of them out of their reputations as by-default losers, so the title was apt — Hunter was probably the least close to Gus, even including Amity.
He'd already somewhat known Luz going into the group, Willow had been his mission, and he and Amity had weirdly bonded over mutual distrust. But Gus? They'd never had anything to click. Oh sure, Gus had been almost as friendly as Luz herself and had welcomed Hunter in, and Hunter had nothing in particular against Gus. But they just had no time to find something to bond over.
Until now, at least.
Hunter's friendless background stuffed with copious reading meant he'd never experienced "guy talk" — just as Willow had never had girl talk before Luz came around — even as he was somewhat aware of the concept. And he needed an opinion from someone with male vitality (supposedly called "testosterone" in the Human Realm) flowing through his veins rather than female vivacity.
"Yeah, I did," Hunter replied, arms crossed and posture stiff with discomfort. He didn't regret saying it. He meant it with every fibre of his being.
"And she said it back," Gus said, a statement rather than a question. His knowing smirk was suddenly very annoying.
"She did," Hunter said.
Gus laughed, the sound honestly joyful rather than mocking. "Dude, I am so proud of you!"
"Proud?" Hunter asked, tense muscles slacking in sheer surprise.
"Yes!" Gus crowed. "You put yourself out there!" He seemed to visibly reel himself back and released a pent breath. "Look man, it's obvious you don't have a lot of people you trust or … even really care about." He lifted his hands palms out in a gesture of surrender. "And I don't mean that as an insult, just an observation. But admitting you love Willow? That's a massive step forward!"
"I am so regretting talking about this," Hunter groaned, rubbing his forehead with the heels of his hands.
"Not for long," Gus said pointedly, "because I've got kind of a warning for you."
"If it's the 'hurt her and you won't live to regret it' line, Eun already gave me that," Hunter groused.
"No, not that," Gus waved away, "though it applies from me, too, of course." He chuckled and then sobered up. "No, I mean Willow's gonna want to introduce you to the rest of the family."
"More Parks?" Hunter asked, straightening up from his slouch against the wall.
Gus chuckled cryptically. "No. Not more Parks."
'Titan,' Hunter thought bleakly. 'Give me the strength to get through this.'
He'd been here before, even if no one who lived here knew. Willow had asked him to come with her after school had let out and led him to this place: a large, white-brick house covered with pale stucco, bearing a sloping, lapis-colored roof and a massive stained-glass window reminiscent of an eye over the door. A crumbling stone tower loomed over it in the background.
The Owl House.
"C'mon, Hunter," Willow said with a wide smile, tugging him by his crooked arm as Clover and Lil Rascal flew around them. "It's time to meet the rest of my family."
This was what Gus had warned him about.
"Hoot, hoot!" The face of the house demon stretched and met them halfway across the clearing, just as Hunter had seen in his surveillance of the House and read about in reports. Reports that also spared no detail in how formidable it was. "Heya, Willow!" the demon greeted in a grating, high-pitched voice. "This the guy you were talking about?"
"Yes, Hooty, it is," Willow replied with a straight face and somewhat forced calm. She squeezed Hunter's hand in what he assumed was reassurance. "This is Hunter."
"Hi, Hunter!" Hooty shrilled, wrapping around him in a flash for a squeezing hug. "I'm Hooty! If you need to talk, I'll listen!"
"Hooty!" Willow barked, her forced calm replaced by deadly calm. "Let him go now." The last word was punctuated by glowing green eyes and the ominous creaking of distant trees, the ground itself rumbling.
"Okay," Hooty said weakly, slowly and carefully as he gently unwrapped Hunter and retreated into the door. "Welcome to the Owl House!" The door opened to allow them entry.
"Sorry about that," Willow sighed, hauling Hunter up by his arm with little visible effort. "I warned Hooty to tone it down for your first visit, but-" She was cut off with a squeak as Hunter swept her into a drawn-out kiss that took her breath away. They separated with a soft chu, and Hunter whispered into her ear, "You are amazing."
Willow swallowed and blushed, giggling like the schoolgirl she was. The palismen trilled and tweeted with emotion at the display. "Awww," Hooty cooed, too, his head turning just a bit to look before he winced. "Oops. Sorry. Ignore that."
The mood ruined, Willow felt a little embarrassment. "W-Well, I- um… Let's get inside."
Willow led Hunter inside, keeping the door open for the palismen who congregated around Owlbert, to find Luz and King on the couch. Luz lit up at their arrival and sprung up to hug them. "Willow! Hunter!" She squeezed them both with surprising strength. Well, surprising to Hunter. Willow had long adjusted to the fact that Luz had become far stronger than she looked while living on the Boiling Isles.
"Hunter," Luz said warmly as she separated from them, "welcome to the Owl House! It's a sight to behold for the first time, huh?"
"Uh, yeah," Hunter replied, clearly uncomfortable. "A sight."
"Don't worry," Willow said, leaning into Hunter's side, "Eda's not at all the person the Emperor's Coven depicts her as. Sure, she can be grumpy and rude and childish sometimes and a little arrogant," she blinked at all of that and refocused, "but she's also very wise and very kind, in her own way."
"I'm gonna ignore that first part of the spiel," Eda said as she finally arrived. "You must be Hunter," Eda said with a smirk and her fists on her hips. "Nice to meet ya, Blondie."
"Owl Lady," Hunter said tightly. "It's-" he glanced at Willow, "-a pleasure to be here."
Luz suddenly burst into giggles. "Sorry, sorry," she said, waving her hands in front of her, "but I just realized something. The way Willow described Eda sounds a whole lot like Hunter." She clutched her stomach and actually fell over from laughing. "He's even done the 'Byeeee' thing!"
Willow lifted an eyebrow at the last part, but giggled behind her hand. Luz was right, it did sound like Hunter. Her Hunter.
"Y'know, I'm here, too," King groused, his arms crossed as he pouted from his place on the couch. With his trademark grunts, he hopped off the couch and approached with narrowed eyes. "King Clawthorne," he said, holding out a paw to shake.
"I know who you are," Hunter said, though pointedly dropping to one knee. "The entire Boiling Isles knows who you are from that stream a few weeks ago." He sighed and shook the demon's hand. "How's the search for dear ole dad coming?"
King jerked his hand away with a grunt. "None of your business," he snapped.
"King-Hunter, be polite!" Luz and Willow scolded in near-perfect sync.
The males glanced from their sister figure and girlfriend respectively and back to each other with wide eyes and grimaced, or in King's case at least narrowed his eyes. "Sorry," they growled, also in unison and identical tone. The tone that meant they were saying because they were told to and not because they meant it.
With that settled, Luz took up retrying introductions. "Hunter Strong, meet Eda Clawthorne and King Clawthorne. Eda, King, this is Hunter, our newest friend." The way she stressed that last word made Willow wonder for a moment, but she decided to chalk it up to the tension between the boys in the room.
"So, Hunter," Eda said with a sly grin, "how'd you meet our dear little Willow?"
Willow smiled and led Hunter to the couch, both of them intuitively sitting close and leaning into each other as they wove their fingers. Willow noticed Eda's smirk waver for a moment, something like pain flashing through her eyes before it was covered up by her usual attitude. She made a note to herself to ask later.
"It started for me when we first met a few weeks ago," Willow said, "the day after Luz, Gus and I had that little spat with the Glandus kids."
By the time Willow had finished their tale with occasional notes from Hunter — omitting only very personal details like the kissing or Hunter's lack of innate magic — King was watching with wide, shining eyes, Luz was no better as she heard it all straight from the source, the palismen were entranced even if Clover and Lil Rascal had been there for one half of it respectively, and even Eda seemed a little touched. Though the pain in her eyes had slowly built until her expression was guarded, as if warding off tears.
"Eda?" Willow asked.
"I'm fine," she said, waving her hand in dismissal and taking a slow breath. "Just reliving old memories, I guess."
"Old memories?" Luz asked, eyes wide.
"Not today, Kid," Eda said, her tone unmoving as bedrock. For once, Luz seemed to get the message and let it go. Eda drummed her nails against the arm of the chair she was sitting in and smirked. "Y'know something, Hunter? You remind me of someone else Luz said she met, in Latissa. A beat-up blond with no magical powers." She paused as Hunter's tension ratcheted up. "She called him, and these are her words," Luz was waving her hands to stop her mentor, "a 'bad, but sad' boy." She and King chuckled while Luz looked mortified.
Willow pressed her lips at the oblique mention of the Golden Guard. Luz had told her the story, though she'd never mentioned that he had no magic. She looked at Hunter and was shocked to see his eyes shining as they bored into Luz. For her part, Luz was blushing as she averted her own gaze.
Hunter stood up from the couch, his posture rigid. "I'm gonna get some air," he bit out before stomping to the door and leaving with a slam of it. Lil Rascal tweeted with distress, but a buzz from Clover helped him settle.
The room was silent for several long moments before Willow spoke up. "What was that about?"
"You know him best, Glasses," Eda said, though her smirk had faded into a mix of faint concern and remorse. "Guess it's up to you to figure it out."
Willow stared at her quizzically, her instincts screaming that Eda was holding something back, something important, when she tripped onto something she'd said. "Wait a minute." She looked at Luz. "How did you know Hunter has no magic?"
Luz paled and swallowed thickly. "W-What? You-" She blinked and seemed to flounder before she looked back at Willow almost in panic. "You know? How'd you find out?"
Willow grit her teeth and was sorely tempted to point out that she had asked first, but decided it wasn't worth the conflict so long as Luz was honest. She told Luz and King about that day in the greenhouse after Hunter had been poisoned and the chain of logic that had brought her to the conclusion — and the tender moment it had wrought.
"Oh, Willow," Luz said, "that's so sweet."
"So how do you know?" Willow asked again. Her expression turned from irritated to hurt. "Did-?" She swallowed back sudden pain in her heart. "Did he tell you? Before me?"
Luz gasped. "No! No, no, no, Willow, he didn't tell me!" She seemed to think over her answer before eyes lit up. "I figured it out on my own!" She twiddled her fingers for a moment. "From that adventure we had with the palismen and the dragon to all the times at school, he's never once used magic without a staff." She shrugged helplessly. "I just … kinda … put the pieces together."
Willow mulled this over and decided it wasn't unlikely. Luz may act like a fool at times and often have the foresight of a rodent, but she was far from stupid. She had a sense of intuition that was almost magical in and of itself. "So why did he look so hurt?" Willow asked.
"He probably doesn't like to be reminded of his … condition," Luz said. Then she winced. "And he probably thinks I told Eda and King about it without his permission." She squirmed. "Yeah, I'd be pretty mad, too."
Before Willow could comment, the door opened back up and Hunter entered the living room in a less angry and more moody-looking state than he'd left. "Hey," he said before crossing over to the couch. "Hey," he said directly to Willow, much more softly.
"Are you okay?" she asked, placing a hand on his chest.
"I'll be alright," he assured her with a weak smile. "I, uh-" He winced. "I might have talked to Hooty about a few things. Y'know, after he badgered me for five minutes straight. It let me get some stuff off my chest."
He looked over at Luz, his eyes turning cold for a moment before he sighed. "So, who was that powerless guy you met in Latissa? I don't remember him."
Luz blinked before she smiled a bit. "He was the guy who was trying to take the palismen, the Golden Guard. When you and I took down that dragon thing, we really just drove it off back to Kikimora. I followed the Golden Guard to make sure he wasn't gonna do anything crazy." She smiled. "He was … kind of a jerk, at first. But," she looked up at Hunter, "he was also kind of honorable and really nerdy." She tilted her head with a warm smile. "Which I like in a friend."
"Everything resolved in twenty minutes or less?" Eda asked as she returned with a glass of apple blood.
"Getting there," King said before wriggling into a better position on the couch.
As the witches and demon kept up the newer, lighter atmosphere, the palismen were having a talk of their own — their eyes glowing faint gold as they communed in their own way.
'This cannot last,' Owlbert said to his fellows in the resonant baritone that was his mental voice. 'Secrets have a way of getting out.' He flashed back to Luz's first boiling rainstorm when she and King had found out about Eda's curse.
'I know,' Lil Rascal said. 'And one way or another, this situation is about to come to a head.' He fluttered his wings nervously. 'I just hope we can find a way to make sure no one gets hurt.'
'The question isn't "if," Rascal,' Clover said grimly. 'Someone will get hurt. The real questions are "who" and "how much".'
'The best way would be if Hunter just came clean as soon as possible,' Owlbert observed. 'Yes, it would hurt Willow at first and it would not be easy for Hunter, but such honesty would go a long way in maintaining their relationship.'
'It won't happen,' Lil Rascal said sadly. 'Hunter is frightened more of rejection by his loved ones than anything else in the world. The very idea that Willow will turn against him on principle if he tells her is enough to keep it from even crossing his mind.'
'So when Willow finds out on her own,' Clover sighed, 'she will not take it well.'
'And then there is the matter of Luz, Eda, and King,' Owlbert said. 'When Willow finds out about Hunter, it will only be a matter of time before their role in keeping his secrets is uncovered.'
'And the clock is ticking,' Lil Rascal said nervously. 'Belos has given his deadline, and it's only five days away. Hunter's slowly growing more nervous, and it's affecting his mental state. The conflict between his,' he mentally gagged, 'loyalty to Belos and his feelings for Willow is slowly tearing his heart apart.' He tweeted in genuine fear. 'I don't know how much longer he can handle it.'
The palismen were silent as they all thought over the situation.
'Clover," Owlbert finally said, 'it is up to you. Willow will feel rightfully betrayed when she finds out about Hunter, and Luz's involvement will only make it worse. She will need you to help her through this mess.' He looked at her with a quiet hoot. 'What will you do?'
Clover buzzed with determination. 'What any of us would do for our partners,' she replied simply. 'What we must, in the moment.'
None of them could argue with that.
Luz watched from the window as Hunter and Willow entered the treeline hand-in-hand, Willow laughing at something Hunter had said while he looked smug with success. After Hunter had returned it had been a much more lighthearted time, even with everyone except Willow watching what they said. She smiled and drew the shades before her smile fell into a guilty frown.
"Luz?" King asked from the couch. "You okay?"
Luz walked over and sat on the couch and King crawled into her lap to listen. Eda swirled her glass and downed the rest of the apple blood before she lifted an eyebrow at Luz's expression. "It's hard keeping secrets, eh, Kid?"
"Yeah, it is," Luz replied dully, idly stroking King's fur. "I feel bad hiding things from Willow, especially something so important as who she's really dating. Willow's my first friend," she glanced down at King, "that's my age that I've ever met. And I'm so happy that she's found someone who makes her happy." Her frown deepened into a grimace as she clutched her belly against the pit of shame. "But I keep lying to her; hiding things from her. I wish I could just come clean."
"Yeah, it sucks," Eda agreed. "But it's also not your place to tell. If the nerd wants to be honest with her, that's his business, which means it's his choice." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "This is their relationship and they've gotta figure it out." She glanced up sharply at Luz. "And before you think about it, you're not spreading this. We only know because we've met the guy before. Amity and Gus only know him as Hunter and that's his business, too." She leaned back in her chair with a groan. "Besides, the more people that know, the more ways there are for it all to get out. And that would be bad for everyone involved."
Luz blinked and considered those words. In all honesty, she hadn't considered telling Gus and Amity. Well, not consciously. But knowing herself, she was glad Eda had thought ahead, because she definitely would have thought of it sooner rather than later.
"So what do we do?" Luz asked. "There's no way Belos is going to let Hunter stick around Hexside forever."
"Do we even know what the guy's there for in the first place?" King asked. "I mean, Belos wouldn't send him there for no reason."
Luz narrowed her eyes as she thought back to that first meeting at Hexside. Had it really only been three weeks and change since then? "He said he was there because someone had sensed wild magic," Luz said. "That he was supposed to figure out who and keep it from happening." Her eyes widened as something occurred to her. "Wait, the Scarbury attack. Hunter said he was looking for a teacher, the person who taught Willow wild magic."
Eda straightened up a little at this. "Willow has a teacher?" she asked. "That's news to me."
"No, it's not," Luz said, "because she doesn't have a teacher. And when I told Hunter that after the attack … he looked ready to panic." Her brows furrowed as she tried to reason through that. "Could Hunter … be trying to keep up the lie so he can stay at Hexside?"
"Maybe," Eda replied. "But Belos is way too much of a control freak to let this keep going with no results. I mean, Lily only had a month to seriously capture me, and I was the most wanted witch on the Isles. If Hunter's been given this much time to find Willow's supposed teacher … he's probably toeing his deadline as is."
Luz gulped in fear for her friend. For both of her friends, old and new. "What do we do? Do we ask Hunter about it?"
"He'd never accept the help," Eda grimaced. "The kid's got his pride. And he's probably been conditioned that asking for help is a sign of weakness." She drummed her fingers as she thought. "For now, I'd suggest you keep an eye on him. If he looks like he's unraveling, it means some kind of deadline is drawing near. If it looks really bad, we'll have to get involved for Willow's sake."
"And when you say 'get involved' …?" Luz trailed off.
"We interrogate the Golden Guard," Eda said. "He may not be the real villain here, but if he hurts any of you he's on my list." She grunted and stood up. "But hey, who knows? Maybe it'll all work out and everyone will end up happy." She barked a laugh and left for the kitchen.
Luz and King silently looked at each other.
"Is it ever that easy?" King groused.
"Nope," Luz sighed, returning her gaze to the door. "It really isn't."
Chapter 20, everybody! A breather here because, fair warning, things are going to get crazy soon! Special delivery: PAIN!
*I came up with the witch's "male vitality/female vivacity" as a stand-in for testosterone/estrogen when I really thought about Boiling Isles medicine. The hormones are a little modern-sciencey, so I tried to come up with a more medieval/Renaissance version. They consider it a kind of energy, much like masculine/feminine-yang-yin.
*Luz's explanation for how she figured out about Hunter's powerlessness is based on the chase scene from "Hunting Palismen." If you recall, she DID figure it out on her own.
*In my mind, Owlbert's voice is that of Kieth David - known in Disney circles for voicing Goliath in Gargoyles, Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog, and most recently King Andrias in Amphibia. Clover sounds like Will Holland as Aqua and Lil Rascal sounds like Jesse McCartney as Ventus, both from Kingdom Hearts.
Hope you all liked this! If you did, please do leave a review. They keep my spirits up and my inspiration flowing. And may all of yours flow freely!