So Like, Remember How In Agony Of A Witch Lilith Kidnaps Luz To Get Eda To Come To The Castle For Her

the alt. thanks to them opening boards are going to emotionally scar me for life. look at his face. luz is terrified but desperate with a hope she feels is unfounded, needing that optimism to imagine a way out of this that doesn't hurt; that doesn't end in more tragedy?

she thinks they're on the same level of bad but sad. that she did as much as hunter in the name of helping belos, without knowing the whole truth of who belos was, who he is. she's traumatized by it.

she needs to not be alone in it.

the i'll keep your secret if you keep mine is a knife to the heart. we are in this together, she is saying. whether we like it or not, at least we have each other. at least i'm not alone.

but what do you say to that? how do you make a witch's oath without magic? you take it to heart. you hold it closer to anything. there aren't words for a devotion like that, the kind of devotion hunter has led with his entire life, and now, here, it's for luz. it's for everyone, for protecting them, to be able for them to get home again.

it's reminiscent of that good old golden guard loyalty, but remade in the light of this new world, new life. it's a cause to live by, a goal, a dream; and as the story goes, we can see - there isn't much he isn't willing to sacrifice for it, especially if the cost is only himself.

(he has nothing to return for, after all. he has a graveyard, filled to the brim with bones and masks and a future he only narrowly escaped.)

sacrifice - that is something he's been waiting for his whole life. so of course he's willing to risk everything for them. what better ending is there, where at the very least, his friends can go home to where they are loved? where no one has to be afraid, anymore?

I don't think I've ever posted this, but this comic I've been commissioned rotates in my head every so often

you leave your home behind, but you take your ghosts with you. don't you see the problem? how the story has already begun to unravel, before your eyes, in your hands: the way the world is too gentle, the light too bright, how your reflection doesn’t really look like you? hunter expects the human realm to be at least somewhat similar to that of life on the boiling isles. it isn’t, and he struggles to come to terms. or: times hunter does domestic human things the wrong way, and how over time he begins to get it just right (in his own way, which means kind of, not really, not at all).

hope u all enjoy some time in the human realm + trying to adjust to it after king's tide angst n comfort vibes. i have a handful of chapters for it lined up and outlined further so far, so buckle up, we're in for a ride >:)

no because it IS in the fact that belos had moments where he was kind to hunter. the gentleness of an almost love. something for him, as well, to hold on to caleb by. even by ghost, by dream, by copy.

hunter asking about the human realm in eclipse lake and shaking his head no to belos' you know i've been there before, have i ever told you that? that instilled curiosity is hunter's through and through: but oh, some piece of him has to feel at home in the human world. some part of him being there like finally, finally, i have been waiting for this, i remember you.

that soft nostalgia in belos' tone. the way hunter softens in the face of it? there had to have been more moments like this. not many, not enough by far, but enough to keep him holding on until the next one. enough to keep working towards. motivation, drive, inspiration.

not just for approval, but for pride, for love.

even if it never comes, there is always, always the chance of it.

and that's enough to keep dreaming by. hoping for. fighting for.

because it has to be. it has to be.

the first chapter of the fic i have been thinkin ab since watching & dreaming aired is nearly finished and ready to post but i keep fumbling when it comes to a name. this never happens usually the name comes first but this!!!!! this!!!!

ft. a note that i did consider lyrics from but were just good vibes

because you're a weapon and weapons don't weep / what is a lineage if not a gold thread of pride and guilt / if i let him do this to me, what else will i allow? anything, anything, anything / nothing else matters when he loves me and nothing else matters when he doesn't / i know i should go but i follow you like a man possessed / i am the sword (if i'm not the sword, who am i?) / i will wait for the next time you want me like a dog with a bird outside your door / i am dirty, infinitely dirty, this is why i scream so much about purity / grief taught me inhumane things / if you're raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house / but you have to satisfy the monster. the monster has loved you for longer than anyone else / anything i've ever let go of has had claw marks on it / if you killed me, would you make it good? would you make it holy? / god loves you but not enough to save you.

u ever go in to do final reads to look for spelling errors and weird formatting things and accidentally, idk, end up adding five hundred more words

this chapter is giving me so much trouble but man .... man this idea is haunting me each time i scroll by it.

if we're putting the weight on luz's insecurities in the w&d nightmare scenario, that this is what she feels she is: trying to always be more than what she can be, always wishing to be understood but always falling short? she has made this world into a story of her own making, her own narrative, playing god, just like belos.

to have it pushed back at her, to hear hunter say no, no you can't save me, i'm not a character, i don't have a place in your silly stories - i don't deserve it, like something too honest to hold. to heavy a truth to handle, hurt and horror and everything terrible.

because here, it means - failure. who is the hero if they don't save everyone? if they leave someone behind?

putting my head in my hands. the grief. the grief of not knowing now where you belong .... of trying to find a place and making it for yourself and yet nothing fits the same ....

thinking ab the similarities of luz and hunter and how they are so different in their experiences and yet so alike.

they are both so desperate for acceptance. for acknowledgement of who they are, who they want to be – for love, given without terms, unconditional. to be seen, in the light that is all their own, without being asked to cut off corners, pieces of themselves that aren't ... acceptable, by most, that would be easier if they weren't there.

their stories are different and yet their hearts are the same. they want to be strong, brave, enough to get through the next thing, and the next, and the next – still holding on to a hurt that makes them. that changed them, fundamentally, so long ago. how it still changes them today. how there is no separation, even still, even here, in the light of the human world, bright enough to dream by.

so can you see it, the way they are tectonic plates, shifting up against one another, holding up and together entire worlds? the weight of responsibility, of what it means (and what it is) holding on to hope. what it takes from you, and how you have learned not to talk about it, because who else would understand? and how would you hold yet another piece of it, too heavy for your hands?

the earthquakes that would result in them butting heads. the way the story has always led to the parallels of things. the way brothers and siblings will eventually come to this point, the event horizon of hurt and hope. the way the bones of it have always been lying in wait, to return to this, right here - what becomes of us now?

the way it was always going to come to this. the story doesn't know any other way. so it will do it again, it will do it over, and over, and over - until it can get it right.

(including a small snippet of a vague chapter intro:)