She'd been watching him off and on since she'd coaxed him down from the lookout point with the offer of breakfast. Not that he'd eaten more than a few meager bits of the offering before he'd left his plate for Hooty to finish instead and slipped away once again.
And for a while, the human girl had given him his space. Now however she was craving company other than Salty and Hootsifer, so she'd gone looking for her favored Demon King.
This time she finds him sitting alone at the bow of the steamship.
With a deep sigh Luz stepped closer taking the thing from her pocket that Hooty had remembered only a few minutes before that Eda had sent along so their little Goober "remembered he always had a place here" as the Owl Lady had said as she'd tossed the thing at the once again portable sized Hootsifer once King had in her words "found his other family"
"King?" the human girl asks not wanting to startle the upset young titian as she steps just a little closer.
She doesn't say anything when after he'd given his unspoken acceptance of her company by scooting over then softly tapping the now vacant space with the tip of one clawed paw Luz noticed the young demon was still crying freely as the ship sailed smoothly away from the place that had caused the group so much upset. King especially.
"Eda thought you'd want to have this." Luz says passing Francois over to her best friend.
King immediately hugging his second in command of his 'army of darkness' tightly against his chest as he leans even more into the human girl's side. His shoulders once again shaking in quiet sobs.
"Do you think Mom will help me make Apple blood cookies when we get home?" King asks his voice still broken with saddened yet hopeful emotion.
"There are apple blood cookies?" Luz asks not inertly pretending her surprise with the question.
"I don't really know. But I heard auntie Lilith talking about it with Hooty. Apparently, the recipe was something she and Raine cooked up after Eda had had a really bad night with her curse."
"You can always ask." Luz says trying to smile that didn't show just how upset she still was on her best friend's behalf as her fingers tangle a little deeper into the soft fur of King's back in attempted comfort.
"Yeah." King says after a pause in thought "but for now I think I have a better idea." The upset young titan decides still clinging onto Francois close as he gets to his feet his back now turned towards the looming body of what he knew both as home but also the rotting body of either his actual dad or a relative. All this time he'd been living on his family bones.
"Will you come with me?" the growing demon asks holding out his rabbit free hand towards the human girl.
"Sure, buddy." Luz agrees with a soft smile when after a bit of maneuvering her furred bestie had returned to riding in her hoodie as they walked the short trip back to the main deck of the still moving ship.
"Hey, Hooty, wanna play catch with Luz and me until we reach land?" King calls out. Again, he struggled with his newfound knowledge of what the looming outline of bone truly was. In an odd way, his father if that was what the Titan truly was had never really abandoned him. He'd been with King all his life in fact but not even that could break the war now going on inside King's head. He didn't even know if he'd be able to step on the shore once they'd reached the dock or if he'd ride in Luz's hoodie until they got back to the Owl House. Back to Eda. His real family. "We can use Francois as the ball if you promise not to eat him."
"You really mean it, Hoot Hoot" the bird tub to go as Luz had once heard Eda call him asked in shocked awe as he turned from whatever he'd been doing at the small ship's stove after Salty had gone back to tending the boiler.
"Yeah." King agrees "what's even better than playing catch with parents is playing it with siblings or so I've heard." He goes on looking between Luz then Hooty in turn. "So, what do you say? Sis, big bro. wanna play?"
Turned out what he'd been doing was making a large plate of cookies curtesy of ingredients sent along by Lilith as the morning dragged into late afternoon. The plate being split between all four after a few rounds of 'toss Francois' with King and Hooty on one team and Luz and Salty on the other. The players are interchanged between rounds so everyone feels included as the ship slowly sails back towards the isles.
