The Hunter Without

To say that the Owl House was in rough shape would be factual. But at the same time, Luz figured it probably didn’t to the disheshevaled shape it was in enough justice. Standing before the Hooty-less Owl House, watching the dried and cracked paint used to write messages such as “The Emperor’s Coven wuz here.” And “Bad Word” was enough to make Luz’s little heart burn with rage. As the emotion bubbled up she pushed it back down, not now.

The wind blew by, whipping through her hair dramatically. In this Luz caught another glimpse of the shiny golden strands being blown by the wind. Something was clearly wrong with her appearance, something she suspected had to do with the circumstances of her death and resurrection. She needed a mirror, and fast; that means into the house she needs to go.

“What is this place?” Her mom asked, voice filled with a mix of wonder and worry.

Slowly, Luz walked to the door. Gripping the handle she took a deep breath and steadied her trembling hand. “Welcome to the Owl House'' the door swung open and again broke Luz’s heart. It didn’t even occur to her that Eda and King hadn’t been back since the day of Unity, but seeing the stripped bare interior proved it. The Owl House itself was dead.

Once inside, Luz made quick work to excuse herself from the room, dashing over to the guest room and ransacking what little wasn’t already picked clean by guards, apocalyptic survivors, and whatever other kinds of scavengers could have been by in recent months. Like a woman on a mission, Luz systematically jumped through every conceivable container, even drawing the attention of Flapjack, who still was following her around like a lost puppy.

“Flapjack, do you think you can help me out?” She asked the little red bird.

She watched as he chirped inquisitively and tilted his tiny little head, as if to ask. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for a teal stone that’s in the shape of a geometric diamond.” She explained “Lilith left her concealment stone over here and I’m really hoping that nobody found and took it.”

After getting it explained, Flapjack took one look around the room, fluttered over to bed, scuttled beneath it, and returned moments later while tugging the old form fitting dress Lilith wore as a member of the Emperor’s Coven.

“Of course!” Luz exclaimed, seeing how the concealment stone was embedded into the dress. “You’re a lifesaver Buddy.”

Flapjack tweeted in a way Luz assumed he was saying, “It’s nothing.”

Shooting the bird one last smile, Luz exited the room and entered the guest bathroom across the hall. She took a deep breath as she crossed into the room, eyeing the mirror before it could reflect her. Luz was almost certain she wasn’t going to recognize the person in the reflection. It was hard to prepare for that mentally.

Looking at her appearance was both an exciting and terrifying experience. Rather often, humans take their essential looks for granted, instead focusing on accessories and ancillary aspects like clothes, makeup, styling, and other things that Luz couldn’t be bothered to think about presently. However, those base layers of appearance are something rather crucial to any person’s self-image; if they were to be changed, a person wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. That was why the first glimpse was the most terrible because when walking by a mirror every day for fifteen years, one gets somewhat accustomed to how one looks. The moment the mirror suddenly shows you something else, it can become something troubling and strange to behold.

It was her first time getting a genuine look at herself since resurrecting. Luz obviously had a couple more important things going on at the time, such as guilt, guilt, returning to the Isles, stress, and more guilt. Even at that, she’d thought about how it came about constantly, the thoughts churning in the back of her head with a consistency to them that made her feel utterly sick to her stomach. She was resurrected by the energy let off from Hunter’s death, so it was safe to assume that there would have to be some effects on her physical body. All of that said, Luz never expected to be blonde.

Her heart skipped a beat as she scrutinized the reflection that looked back at her. In addition to the gouge taken out of her eyebrow, Luz’s right cheek held three scars. All lined up like scratch marks. Her eyes were the worst offender, irises shining with the same intense red that once gave Hunter a unique glare.

It was terrifying, the eye contact she made with her reflection. It felt wrong. Everything was wrong, she was wrong, and he was gone, yet even now, he still had to haunt her. Sweat trickled down her forehead, and Luz felt her chest tighten. She had died; Hunter died to resurrect her, and that was that. If only she could just forget, if only it were possible to stay distracted forever.

Luz’s stomach churned more and more; it felt like she was about to vomit despite there being nothing to vomit up. At some point, her hand returned to the scars on her face, the permanent mark of where Philip ripped her flesh from to rebuild himself a human body, the personified mark of her possession. She could remember it clear as day, the hatred, the rage that drove Philip on Halloween.

Her hand shuddered as if it were wounded. Images of it morphed into the very tool that stabbed through Hunter’s chest.

“My name is Hunter,” a voice echoed through her thoughts… his voice.

“No,” she murmured, nothing above merely a whisper. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Eh, makes sense. Mindscapes reflect the individual. I’ve read a lot about this subject.”

“I’ll be home soon, Flapjack… Stay safe. I love you,”

“I don't know if I'm a witch or a human. All I know is I'm a copy of someone Belos made disappear.”

“Shut up!” She screamed, clasping her hands over her ears despite knowing it would do nothing deep down. At this point, she also realized that she was on the floor, looking upwards. “Get out, get out of my head!” Hunter’s different quotations began overlapping, allowing her only to catch every few words as the memories of the older teen mocked her.

“I just wanna make sure everyone is safe.”

“For a moment, I might have assumed you were the real deal.”

“Yes. She is my family,”

Luz whimpered, tears streaming down her face feeling like knives on her skin. “Get back. You’re dead! Shut up!” She gripped the sides of her head, the world around her spiraling. Her skull pounded as though it were trying to force itself out of her head.

“Luz!” Hunter’s voice came again. However, it was different. Looking after it, her blood ran cold as Luz made contact with him… his skin was devoid of all color. His eyes were scratched out, almost as if he were a drawing, and the artist wasted a pencil’s worth of graphite to cross out his once vibrant irises.

“No, no, no.” She gasped, “You aren’t real.”

“I died because of you.” He stated calmly as if stating a common fact. “Your weakness.”

He stalked closer, “I was alone for a time, but you’re with me now. Just like before… family.”

The sound of a wave crashing against the sand appeared out of the depths of wherever Luz currently found herself. “Be quiet!”

“Why didn’t you save me, Luz!” He screamed, voice sounding pitched down and out of sync. One second he was far away; the next, he flickered closer. “Why did you want me to die?”

“I didn’t want you to die,” she sobbed. “I swear!”

He knelt down, the scratched black bar over his eyes flickering away to reveal empty eyes filled with a pattern that heavily resembled TV static. “But I did.” He grabbed Luz and wrenched her to her feet, the sound of static growing in her ears. “You cheated death at the cost of another. How much longer can you make it?”

Luz could not speak, her mouth trembling as more tears spilled from her eyes.

“How much longer before I eat you alive?” His bottom jaw elongated, detaching from his top jaw with a sickening cracking noise. As the gaping mouth ensnared her, Luz let out a scream of cathartic terror.

Then she was back where she was moments ago, in the bathroom staring at her reflection.

“What?” She murmured, running the water and splashing herself in the face to make sure what she was experiencing was real. Thankfully, the shivers of cold that followed the water proved it, and Luz was standing in the real world.

She watched as the water trickled down her face, from her blonde hair, around her red eyes, and across the trinity of scars. Like a snail, she grabbed a lock of her hair and stared at it. The shiny gold look to her hair still felt wrong. With a sigh, she grabbed the concealment stone she had nicked from the guest bedroom and placed it around her neck, ensuring the band hung just right for the magic to work.

With a poof of blue illusion magic, Luz thankfully looked at her own eyes again, the familiar color bringing a tiny little smile onto her face. While the stone couldn’t take care of all of her hair, it did take care of most of it, with only a golden rogue streak hanging down over her face. A rogue streak just like Hunter’s… because the universe still hated her even on the Isles.

Luz swiftly tucked the face-framing strands of hair into the rest of the now messy collective of brown, intermixing it until it couldn’t be easily noticed by anyone. Next, she hid the stone from visibility, leaving it just under her collar as she opened the door to the bathroom and walked out into the open.
_

Philip didn’t actually know what he was expecting to find along this path, but he swore to god that if he had to see another hallucination of Luz goddamn Noceda, he was going to lose it.

Honestly he would take Caleb, or any of the failed Golden Guards, or any of the not failed Golden Guards. Kikimora could descend from the heavens and challenge him to a one on one here and now and he would prefer it to looking at the dead eyes of a child he possessed and potentially killed one more time.

He couldn’t help that he has a sweet spot for the only other human he’s had an extended interaction with since Caleb… passed.

Speaking of the devil, he had to pause as the familiar specter of his brother appeared before him. Before it could even open its mouth, Philip grumbled “Don’t you dare mock me!”

“There’s really no need,” It said back, monotone voice to match the blank and slightly peeve expression etched onto Caleb’s features. “You mock yourself enough.”

“I do no such thing,” He snapped at it, rolling his eyes as he passed through the imaginary construct.

“Pretending to care about the Grimwalkers, hurting the poor Luz girl despite genuinely not wanting to, failing to accomplish the one thing you very nearly lost your humanity to do because you double crossed your partner a little too early…” the specter listed. “Need I say more?”

Philip growled angrily “Where do you get off high roading me?” He pointed a finger at the see through version of Caleb accusingly. “This is all your fault anyways.”

The specter cocked its head “How so?”

“We’ve been over this a million times. You were the one who wanted to abandon me for this place… for Evelyn.” He spat “After mother and father passed you were all I knew I could trust and yet you still chose to leave me in favor of the very thing we were supposed to hunt!”

The image of Caleb looked at Philip blankly for a moment before replying “Is that really what you think?” Philip turned to leave only to see himself fenced in by visions of the Golden Guards from the original to Hunter. “Or is that what you tell yourself because you’ve forgotten why you really want this?”

Philip examined Caleb and the Guards, grinding his teeth. “Lived to long,” Was how he responded “But the work must be done.”

With that he soldiered on, not looking back at the congregation of his sins. Not even watching them slowly poof out one by one.
_

It didn’t take long for Amity to find her in Eda’s nest, cuddling the egg and surrounded in a torrent of light glyphs.

“Hey.” Her girlfriend said from above, peering at Luz over the edge of the nest.

Rolling to face her Luz responded “Hey.”

“Did you think that sitting in a nest was going to help it hatch?” Amity asked.

“Maybe.” She answered, sitting up. “I figured it was worth a shot at the very least.”

Amity chuckled, “Of course you would.” However, her joy clearly vacated when she saw the gemstone hanging around her neck. “You— you’re wearing a concealment stone.”

Luz chuckled bitterly, fiddling with the stone absently.

“Why?” It was a simple question that Amity asked earnestly.

“Because I looked in the mirror,” Luz explained “and when I did I saw Hunter.” She grabbed the rogue streak of golden hair and pulled it from the mass of hair on her head. “I know why my own mother couldn’t look me in the eyes earlier.”

Amity’s expression panged with worry. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“My eyes were red, Amity!” Luz exclaimed “For a few horrific moments I had to come to terms with the fact that I’m officially a blonde.” Luz grabbed her legs and pulled them in, fighting the torrent of tears threatening to spill. “Traits stolen from mi hermano.”

Her girlfriend reached out and squeezed her hand. Golden eyes gazed into illusory brown ones. “Luz, never blame yourself for what happened to Hunter. Belos used you, controlled you. You had no agency in that situation.”

Luz looked at Amity with as much softness as she could muster. She shot a small smile at her, trying to desperately give the impression that she believed anything Amity just said. Especially as Hunter loomed just over her shoulder, eyes empty with static.