Villainous Thing | The Golden Guard | The Owl House

Soaked And Shivered From The Rain

Eda can't help but be surprised when she finds Hunter at their front door.

She had almost expected him not to come back.

Of course she had wanted him to return, but Eda had seen the look on the kid's face. He was scared and lonely and she knows teenagers don't exactly have the best track record of making good decisions when they're upset.

But he came back, haggard and worn out as he was, and is standing on her doorstep with Luz. She can't help but smile at him, unworried with how soft she must look.

Maybe he's grown on Eda already, sue her.

She wants to deny the existence of that motherly instinct inside of her, that part of her that has only seems to intensify since Luz began to stay with her. But Hunter is very good at looking like a kicked baby animal and Eda is very bad at just ignoring it.

When she beckons them in, she instinctively ruffles Luz's hair, a casual affection that she has learned while living with the human girl. Luz always seems to preen when Eda initiates in something tactile first, smiling and flush with innocent happiness.

So, when Hunter walks by her, she reaches out for him, too. She doesn't think about it, only remembers that awed look that had been on his face the last time she had done it. That wide-eyed look on his face, a startled flush on his cheeks as if he had never experienced a simple head pat before.

But this time he violently jerks away as soon as her fingers so much as brush the tips of his hair. She pulls back immediately, but Hunter's eyes stay clenched shut for a few more moments.

When he looks at her again, it's with wide and watery eyes, his face pale and lips thin. It's a stark contrast of that vaguely hopeful, pleasantly surprised look he had worn last time. No, this time he looks scared, nearly terrified, and Eda didn't know that a child looking genuinely afraid of her would make her chest feel like it's painfully breaking open.

She can feel her lips part, the widening of her eyes. Hunter seems to shrink, ears down turned and shoulders tense and hunched up.

She quickly pulls her face into a neutral expression, "Let's just go eat, yeah? You look like you could use it."

And it's true. He looks swallowed up by his clothes, face thinner and his complexion almost sickly. His lips are pale and chapped, bitten raw. His scars look nearly inflamed against his skin.

"Yeah, let's go do that." Luz exclaims, going for casual and missing by about a mile.

She scurries off into the kitchen and Eda carefully closes the front door. Hunter is quiet, a pale smear of a boy in her doorway. As she walks away, she smiles at him.

His face only stares blankly back at her.

She hides her frown, something twisting and rolling in her chest. Eda tries to leave him be, give him a chance to calm down as she resumes helping Luz prepare lunch.

It was Eda's idea, surprisingly, to do it together.

Maybe it was because Luz had become progressively less energetic the longer Hunter had stayed gone, her face pinching when a week had turned into eight, nine, ten days. She'd likely never admit it, but she had looked three parts worried and five parts guilty, as if Hunter not coming back was somehow her fault. 

It had made Eda's chest uncomfortably tight, her mind already brimming with worry for Hunter, Raine, Luz, King. Hell, she was worried for her entire family, the Boiling Isles as a whole. Maybe she could use the time to decompress herself as well.

Eda tries to continue the string of conversation from earlier, trying to give Hunter the time he needs. Luz and King catch on, even if Luz's eyes keep trailing over to the kitchen's entrance.