REWRITING [] Hearts of gold [] Hunter TOH x Reader

Chapter 36 - Y/N's pov

 We had gone to the portal house, and it looked amazing. The others had decorated it since the explosion, and the fire. Hunter, Gus, and I were sitting on the now clean floor, Vee was in an armchair in her basilisk form, Willow was on a beanbag, and Amity was sitting on a cooler. The palismen were curled in a little pet bed, while P/N and flapjack were pecking at the ground.

We were all trying to imitate the sound the little blue owl had made, the app was designed to teach spanish. While the rest of us struggled, Vee recited a perfect sentence.

'Perfecto!' the app said 'You're our top student!'

Amity huffed a bit "I was the top student once" she murmured

I smiled lightly, and heard the birds pecking at the ground and glanced up to watch Flapjack and P/N pressing their beaks against the floor, like they were trying to find something.

"They're still doing that, huh?" Gus said, almost reading my thoughts

"He won't tell me what he's looking for" Hunter said

"Neither will P/N" I put in

Before we could talk about, or theorize, about was P/N and Flapjack were doing, the door opened to reveal Camila.

"Hi!" she said, wearing her usual smile "ooh! I like what you've done with the place! No more exposed nails, or possum nests..."

She turned the door to reveal the drawing of the bird tube, made in dripping red paint.

"But this still confused me" she looked at the drawing

"Yeah..." willow said, glancing up from her camera "He still confuses us too."

Gus stood up "Hola Camila!" he said, using the new spanish he'd learned with us from the app "We're learning spanish from this scary owl app!"

'Hoot hoot!' the app said 'Practice every day............or I'll appear in your nightmares"

"Oh, okay" Camila said, seemingly unphased by the dream-haunting owl "Well, I'm gonna pick up Luz from school. Pop quiz! ¿Cómo se dice eso en español?" ( "How do you say that in spanish" )

Hunter stood up, seeming confident "Hoy a............Luz................................" he struggled a bit to say the words in spanish, only for Vee to say it perfectly

Camila smiled "Muy bueno! Keep it up!" she left, leaving the rest of us alone again

We started repeating some new words on the owl app, seemingly doing a bit better.

"Maybe we should take a break." Amity finally said

"A siesta!" Willow added

"Siesta!" Gus repeated

I smiled lightly, things were nice right now.

"We've been here for months and we've made no progress on the portal door" Amity said, sounding a bit stressed "We can't expect Camila to take care of us forever."

"In the meantime" Gus put in "We could pull more weight around the kitchen. My mustard ravioli did bring tears to her eyes"

"Those weren't the kind of tears you're thinking of" Vee murmured

"I can help fix damaged clothes!" Hunter said, holding up a sewing project he'd made.

Recently he'd been really obsessed with sewing, I thought it was really cute, and it was also good that he'd found a hobby.

"I can spruce up the garden!" Willow said, holding up what appeared to be a man-eating plant.

A bit of wind blew, opening the door slightly, Amity glanced outside. "Maybe we need to...look elsewhere! There's an entire human realm to search!"

Willow snapped a photo, Amity flinched.

"But Luz has school most of the week." Willow said, as the photo printed.

"So? Let's explore the town ourselves! After all, Luz went into the boiling aisles on her own!" Amity said

"If Eda came before, maybe there were others!" Gus said "Maybe they left something behind we can use!"

"Yes thats the spirit!" Amity grinned "Together there's no challenge that can hold us back!"

She barely finished what she was saying before she stepped on one of the main places that P/N and flapjack had been pecking at, and the floor gave way, half of her leg falling in.

"Ow-" she said, face to the floor.

"It's a sign!" Gus said "We're doomed!"

Amity pulled her leg out of where the floor had collapsed.

"Come on Flapjack, P/N" she said "This isn't funny anymore."

She glanced into the hole in the floor and gasped, was there something there?

"There's something in here.." she said, almost reading what I was thinking, she reached a hand in and pulled out a little octogonal box.

We came closer, investigating the thing. Maybe it could help us get home! Part of me wondered where exactly Hunter and I would go after we arrived back.......since we didn't work for the emperor anymore, and living at Hexide wasn't really an option. I shook away the thoughts. We'd cross that bridge when we got there.

Amity opened the box and pulled out a small scroll, with strange symbols on it. We started looking it over, though none of us exactly understood it.

"Looks like a.....map?" Gus guessed, not completely sure

"Or a secret code?" Willow put in, also not fully sure

"Maybe a puzzle?" I said, looking over the tiny scroll again

Flapjack flew onto Hunter's shoulder

"Flapjack, is this what you and P/N have been looking for?" Hunter asked Flapjack "What does it lead to?"

"That eye....." Amity murmured, pointing to a little eye symbol on the scroll "It kinda looks like the old portal door.."

I remembered when I had worked on rebuilding the door. The memory felt....weird to think of now, but Amity was right, the eye symbol on the scroll resembled the portal door.

Both Willow and Gus gasped "The portal door!" They said, speaking in unison "PORTAL DOOR! PORTAL DOOR!" they started chanting

I smiled lightly. They were such sweet friends.

"Lets tell Luz!" Vee said, sounding excited about our discovery

"What if it's just another dead end?" Amity said, sounding a bit unsure

"She already feels responsible for our......failed attempts" I said, not directly mentioning the explosion. It was.......a thing we didn't really discuss much. The burn on my back still stung, but the scratches across my knees had mostly healed, as well as the burn on my elbow.

"Then......lets not tell her until we can figure it out!" Willow suggested "Using our..." she stood up, flexing "BUFF BRAINS!"

The others repeated, somehow speaking in a unison.

Hunter followed with an awkward laugh and a little "yeah!"

I smiled lightly and took his hand.

((A/n - chapter 42 is gonna have the readers sobbing

i literally cried while writing it :/))