After the Storm

As soon as Hunter got his head around what happened, he knew he couldn't go back. It didn't take that long, he'd always been smart.

(That's what his - Belos said, anyway.)

But the castle was his home, it had always been. His few things were there, most of the people he considered as friends were there. He had never known another home. But he couldn't go back. He would never be able to go back. His breathing sped up and his heart raced as he tried to put his thoughts into words.

So what could he do, then? Stay in the infamous Owl House? Maybe, but it would rely on them letting him. Sure, Luz had offered before, but he could never take anything that had been said at face value. Not even from Belos.

He'd thought he could, once. Now he knew better.

Hunter also hated the way they looked at him, like some stray palisman, pity in their eyes.

But what he hated even more was that he was deserving of it. Here he was, some - what was it that Belos had called him? - grimwalker, which was only made to serve him and be destroyed when he wanted to think for himself.

It was too much. It was all too much. He needed some air. His cloak felt heavy, the material too much against his skin. It felt like it was choking him, a symbol of what he was created to do.

He'd fled the house, and nobody tried to stop him, really. Luz chased after, but stopped. The Owl Lady and her... cat didn't know what had happened, and as such were confused, and the bird tube was distracted.

So Hunter ran. He ran into the forest, far away from the stifling air of the Owl House, and the danger of the castle. There was one problem, though. He was injured.

He'd gotten it while escaping the grasps of the Emperor's subconscious, that horrible place which he had been pulled into.

He escaped, in time to save the Human, but at the cost of a blow to the abdomen. Light, by his standards, but still there.

It hurt every time he took a rapid gasp of air, and at every panicked movement he made. It would bruise for sure, and he didn't have anything to help with that. He couldn't even make ice, because his mind was too messed up to do magic and his hands shook too much whenever he tried stopping to draw a glyph and they wouldn't stop-

Hunter leaned against a tree, and found himself with too little energy to do anything other than sit, using it for balance. He finally managed to compute what the Owl Lady - Eda, had said earlier.

Breath.

So Hunter tried. He tried to slow his breathing and think. But it wasn't that simple, because thinking meant coming to terms with the fact that he was made, he was a grimwalker and would never be a witch-

Tears started leaking out of his eyes, tears which he wasn't able to stop. He'd grabbed his hair so tight it hurt, at some point. His breathing was coming in fitful breaths, the opposite of what he had previously tried to do. He could feel and hear everything, every dent in the bark, every sound a demon or animal made, every stitch of his clothing. And something unexpected; the flapping of wings.

Flapjack flew into Hunter's blurry vision. They sat on Hunter's shoulder, nuzzling into his cheek (right where the scar was). Breath, they reminded him, and Hunter slowly found his breathing evening out.

Then, at the sound of footsteps, all that progress was undone.

Hunter scrambled to his feet, eyes darting as he located the source of the noise. Sure enough, there were the figures who were planning on invading the Emperor's mind earlier. By the looks of it, they hadn't spotted him.