Chapter Text
The Golden Guard is just sitting there, as if nothing happened.
His ears are twitching from time to time, his stance taut, his eyes darting around the room. When everyone who had to pee has gone to pee and everyone who had to eat has made a face at the terrible human snacks, they all instinctively go for the couch or the carpet, huddled in a heap and sort of refusing to let each other out of their sight. But not the Golden Guard, oh no. First, he stops on the threshold, clearly looking for other ways to enter or leave, taking note of every window and door. It takes less than a second, and Amity’s pretty sure the rest haven’t noticed him do it.
He’s placed himself next to Gus, though there wasn’t really that much free space, and now it looks really uncomfortable. He has his arm around Willow’s shoulders, while the youngest witch has fallen asleep between them, leaning against the Guard’s outstretched arm as if he were not bothered by the fact that it’s the commander of the Emperor’s Coven.
Amity’s heart sinks at the realization that Willow probably doesn’t mind as well. That’s alarming, though for now, Amity needs to put that thought in a little box, stash it somewhere and revisit it later on. Willow’s not in immediate danger, at least not tonight. Probably. He wouldn’t be that stupid, would he?
He looks like he’s ready to pounce any moment, ever the good soldier.
Amity narrows her eyes at him. He notices, because of course he does. He gives her a wary look, and she turns away. One thing at a time. Luz is trying to explain to her mother what has happened, and Mrs. Noceda seems unable to grasp even the most basic concepts about the demon realm, so Luz needs to stop every few seconds and explain something rudimentary like the coven system or the Titan himself.
Apparently, they don’t even have the Titan here. Luz is shaking, and her grip on Amity’s hand gets painful when she starts talking about King. Amity’s own siblings are also stuck there with the Collector, and so are her parents. So is everyone. Except for them because oh joy, they’re stuck here, in a world without covens and without the Titan, but apparently full of crystal balls that are rectangular for some reason, and full of disconcerting sounds coming from the outside. And also containing the Golden Guard sitting among them, but there’s too much to deal with at the moment, and right now the creep needs to wait for his turn.
He’s good at waiting, she’ll give him that. He makes sure everyone else’s injuries are tended to first, which is a smart move when you think about it. If some substance turned out to be toxic to witches, he’d know from the others’ reactions. He’s the last one to be treated, and he still seems jumpy around Mrs. Noceda and the shy girl that looks an awful lot like Luz. He gracefully allows them to touch his face, patch up a bleeding knee. Downright refuses to take his shirt off, even though at this point it’s obvious the human band-aids and ointments are harmless. Same thing with eating. He waits until everyone’s bowl is filled, he watches them carefully, and starts eating only after the rest of them have swallowed their first gulps of the weird human soup.
Amity really wants to tell him that perhaps he shouldn’t judge the rest of them by his lousy standards. Just because he would jump on the occasion to poison someone, it doesn’t mean the rest of them would.
He refuses to go to sleep. Thus, so does Amity. Luz, blissfully unaware of the source of her girlfriend’s unease, promises to keep her company. Says she won’t be able to fall asleep anyway. It takes her something like ten minutes to break that promise, and Amity can’t blame her. Luz’s been through so much, Luz’s faced Belos on her own, Luz’s been partially petrified. Survived all of that without a bile sac, only with her wits and a few pieces of paper. Luz is amazing like that.
Luz is also really naive at times. Amity can’t blame her, not really. It’s endearing. It’s also infuriating, though mostly because this time Luz is not the only one being led by the nose. The Golden Guard seems to have all of them wrapped around his claw or whatever he has. Amity can’t really tell with those gloves, and that’s just one more reason to beware of Belos’ soldier.
There’s another reason why she can’t blame Luz for falling asleep. Amity herself finds Luz asleep only after she startles awake. She’s tired. So, so tired, every inch of her body hurts, and her eyes refuse to remain open. But Luz is right here, asleep and helpless. So are Gus and Willow. Amity’s lost so much already, she won’t lose them as well.
And so she stares into the darkness angrily. The Golden Guard’s weird eyes stare back, red as a lab ratworm’s and catching the light in the most disturbing way. She’s briefly reminded of the Collector, but this, this is different. This look is hollow.
None of them says anything. When Amity stirs again, it’s because the Golden Guard is shaking everyone awake, whispering in panic something about them oversleeping and the sun being already up. To his obvious distress, most of them just mumble something and go back to sleep, turning their backs to him. Amity’s not going to expose her back like that, though. She wasn’t supposed to drift off in the first place, especially since the Golden Guard’s eye bags clearly tell her he’s spent the entire night awake and up to Titan knows what.
She’s not going to allow that to happen again. The next time, she makes sure it’s her sleeping bag that’s closest to his. Yes, it means this way Luz is closer to him as well, but now Amity’s between them like a witch shield, and Gus and Willow are even farther from the Guard.
Good thing he has insisted on sleeping next to the wall, babbling something about strategic advantages of having no empty space behind you. He might have been a prodigy in some ways, but he’s certainly not a strategist, Amity thinks with a hint of satisfaction as she places herself between the impostor and the only family she has right now. If he tries anything, now he has nowhere to run.
Once again, she must have dozed off at some point because she’s awaken by the sound of shuffling feet. The Golden Guard is no longer by the wall. She turns around and her breath hitches as she sees him bending over Gus’ prone figure, both hands outstretched, fingers splayed as if ready to claw the young witch’s eyes out. Gus must have been thrashing in his sleep, as evidenced by the sleeping bag tangled at his feet. Even if he were to wake up, he couldn’t run with his legs immobilized like that.
Despite all her mental preparation, despite everything she has promised herself, for a second Amity’s not able to move. She stops breathing while she feels the cold sweat run down her back.
The Golden Guard covers Gus with an additional blanket. Then he moves very carefully towards shivering Willow, and adjusts her quilt so that both her arms are covered.
“Don’t,” Amity manages to choke as he turns towards Luz. “Don’t you dare touch her.”
He startles at the sound. He looks at her in alarm, and then his expression changes into something else entirely when he notices the spell circle she has begun to draw.
He stares at her for a moment, silently working his jaw. Then he gives her a curt nod.
“I should do some rounds. Secure the perimeter,” he finally whispers as he turns around and leaves the room.
Amity lets out a shaky breath as the door closes quietly behind him. She wonders briefly what would the rest of them say if they woke up and noticed the door has been locked from the inside while they were asleep. But there’s no lock, not even a latch, and the handle’s function is purely symbolic. Besides, it’s not like any of those things could actually keep the Golden Guard out.
For the next two hours or so, she keeps on listening. From time to time, there’s a creak of an old plank or a faulty stair, and it sounds like he really is doing rounds. But the noises come from random places and dozens of minutes apart. There are no footsteps. It’s eerily quiet, and that’s yet another disturbing thing about the Golden Guard. Amity would rather know where he is at the moment.
.
During breakfast, Luz gives her a worried look. Mrs. Noceda has already left for the clinic, and everyone except Willow has showered already. Gus, who entered the bathroom right after the Golden Guard, has woken everyone up with his scream because his predecessor had conveniently forgotten to change the shower’s setting to something that wouldn’t be ice cold.
“Have you not slept at all, batata? You look dead on your feet,” Luz says, squinting at Amity. “Not that it looks bad, of course,” she adds hurriedly. “You’re totally pulling it off. You’d make a beautiful corpse, absolutely stunning. Eventually, I mean. Not that I would want to see that. But, uh, not because you’d be ugly. Just a— a corpse. I prefer you non-corpsified, if you know what I mean.”
It’s sweet, seeing Luz stumbling over her words and getting more and more flustered. Amity’s heart would be melting had the Golden Guard not snorted into his cereal.
Just because he’s in the kitchen, it doesn’t mean he has the right to make fun of Luz. Or to be in said kitchen, for that matter. There’s no reason why the Golden Guard wouldn’t be upstairs or anywhere else, really.
“Don’t worry, I did get some sleep.” Amity smiles at her girlfriend in reassurance, but she quickly feels her expression turn into a snarl. “Much more than the Golden Guard over here, he spent the night hunting for dangerous empty rooms.”
He puts down his spoon and examines the tablecloth carefully.
“Hunter,” he says, apparently addressing the kitchen table, not her. “I told you my name is Hunter.”
Amity waves a hand dismissively.
“Oh, but I don’t see you calling Willow by her name, do I. It’s always ‘captain’ this, ‘captain’ that.”
“This is different,” he says, and it’s barely audible.
“How so?” Amity asks with polite interest that is very obviously fake.
“She still is a captain.” He doesn’t lift his gaze, and the blush is already reaching the tips of his ears. “And I follow her.”
It’s ridiculous. Unless by ‘follow’ he means ‘stalk,’ and in that case yeah, that’s accurate.
Luz does that thing when she smiles so hard her muscles strain. “Captains do be like that!” she exclaims, and her eye twitches slightly.
Amity frowns, refusing to let the subject go despite Luz’s nervousness.
“I distinctly remember the Scout Captains we’ve encountered being nothing like Willow,” she says, her voice tight. “Actually, I distinctly remember all Belos’ soldiers being nothing like her.”
She looks at the Golden Guard pointedly.
“Subtle,” he deadpans.
Speaking of subtlety— Luz loses her mind. There might be some other explanation for her nervous chuckle, but certainly not for her climbing onto the table and knocking off cutlery onto the floor in the process.
“O captain, my captain!” she exclaims, balancing between the butter dish and the slices of ham that was made of some horrifying alien creature. She sounds shrill.
Thanks Titan, she’s wearing socks and no shoes.
“Luz?” Amity asks, and she’s not the only one.
“O captain, my captain!” Luz repeats insistently. “O captain, my captain!”
“What is … happening?” the Golden Guard asks in genuine confusion, and Amity has no idea how to answer that.
“It’s a human tradition,” Luz explains, and her voice is still unnaturally loud. “When somebody gets on the table and says ‘o captain, my captain,’ others should do that as well.”
“I’ve never heard of such a tradition,” Gus says skeptically. “Is it like a human game? Or, or a reference?”
“It’s fun!” Luz answers without actually answering the question. “Come on!” She gestures impatiently for them to join her on the table. “Once again, with feeling: o captain, my captain!”
The Golden Guard examines the table carefully.
“I don’t think this thing is structurally stable enough to hold more than one person, Luz,” he says warily. Amity hates to admit it, but this one time, he’s right. “Maybe if we were to take turns. But either way, it sounds incredibly unsanitary.”
Luz’s fake enthusiasm disappears as quickly as it has emerged. She shrugs with feigned nonchalance, jumping back to the floor. Yet another fork follows with a clatter. “Welp, that’s your loss,” she says.
But Luz is not stupid, and she knows they’re going back to the same topic of conversation as soon as the distraction ends. Amity can see the gears turning in her head as she tries to recall the less controversial subject from before.
“So,” Luz asks casually, looking at the Golden Guard. “You haven’t slept tonight, like, at all?”
“I don’t— I don’t really do that,” he says awkwardly. At least he’s not denying the whole thing.
“Nightmares?” Luz asks with a note of sympathy where there should be suspicion.
He just grunts something, picking up the completely empty spoon and shoving it into his mouth.
“Hey, you okay?” Amity hears Gus ask, and for a second she wants to snap at the boy and point out how nothing about the Golden Guard’s presence here is okay. But then she realizes the question wasn’t directed at him.
Vee’s frozen, the spoon halfway to her mouth, and its contents at some point have stopped dripping on the tablecloth. She must have spent quite some time like this, who knows how long. Luz has managed to draw everyone’s attention for good two minutes.
The basilisk stares at the Golden Guard, blinking rapidly, and Amity’s never seen anything like it because the eyelids move sideways.
“Vee?” Amity asks, though it does nothing to break the basilisk out of the stupor.
She does flinch at the sound of the Golden Guard’s chair being moved, though.
“I think I should go,” he says tonelessly. His food is almost untouched. “I’ll be— I’ll be reshelving the books in the living room. It’s chaos out there.”
When he leaves, Vee just sort of slumps in her chair, trembling.
“Do you need some magic?” Luz asks her, and without waiting for an answer, she looks at Amity. “Glyphs don’t work here, you need to cast a spell or something.”
There are so many questions to be asked right now, but Amity settles for a baffled “What kind of a spell?”
“Uh, right, abominations. Perhaps not that helpful.” Luz turns to Gus. “Can you do some illusion? Like a really small one, preferably something Vee could hold in her hand to drain?”
“I’m not hungry,” Vee mumbles. “I don’t think I could hold anything down at the moment anyway. Sorry.” She pins back her ears. “I just— I just didn’t know. It was him, I mean. Should have known, probably. That voice is, uh—“
“Annoying?” Amity supplies helpfully.
“Distinctive,” Vee just says.
Well, that’s one way to put it.
It’s endearing, how much time it takes Luz to process what they’re talking about. Her smile drops for a moment, but then it comes back even wider.
“Hunter’s one of the good guys now! He stood up to Belos, he’s got his own palisman, and he’s super into wild magic. He’s had his whole redemption arc and all, just like Amity.”
Vee stares at her in silence.
“I’m nothing like him,” Amity says. “There’s a huge difference between being one of the mean girls at school and being the Golden Guard.”
Luz squints at her.
“Hmm, you sure?”
Very much so. What Amity doesn’t understand is why Luz’s cute quirks have suddenly become a bit vexing.
“Pretty sure, Luz,” she says through clenched teeth. “I bullied weaker witches, he aided a genocidal dictator. I made Willow cry from time to time, he was out there making arrests and stealing innocent palismen, knowing very well what would happen to them. I was mean, but I’m pretty sure he has killed. I came up with the half-a-witch thing, he threatened you and me, and stole the key. You can’t just say ‘he’s one of a good guys now’ as if none of that happened.”
“You came up with that?” Amity hears, suddenly aware of Willow’s presence in the room. The locks that have fallen from under the towel wrapped around her head are dripping, forming a miserable puddle on the floor.
She looks betrayed, and let’s be honest, rightly so.
Amity feels her face turn an ugly shade of red. It’s really annoying, others have those nice blushes on their cheeks and tips of their ears. Heck, even the Golden Guard has this kind of a blush, and apparently he can summon it on cue when he wants to look especially naive and innocent. But nosiree, normal blushing is not for the youngest Blight, no. She needs to immediately turn into a deadbeatroot. Her skin burns with the sensation.
She deserves it, though. Even Luz doesn’t seem to find her blush cute this time.
“Willow—” she starts speaking, expecting for the rest of the sentence to magically manifest out of thin air. It somehow doesn’t, and Amity can’t find any words that would make it better.
What she can do, though, is find words that are going to make it worse.
“Look, I’m sorry. I was a bully, and it sucked. I’m not proud of myself, and you know that,” she says. “But the point I was trying to make is that while I hurt your feelings, he was hurting people for real.”
She hears Gus inhale sharply, but the kid is too smart to comment at the time.
Willow takes a few steps forward. She’s not menacing, but that somehow makes it even more terrible.
“Oh,” she says. “So hurting my feelings was okay, I reckon?”
“No, nonono,” Amity explains hurriedly. “You don’t get it, I don’t mean it like that. Of course I don’t! I don’t mean that I’m good or what I’ve done is okay, I just mean that he’s so much worse by comparison. He’s dangerous and all of you seem to forget that.”
“Batata,” Luz speaks, gently putting a hand over hers. Amity doesn’t know whether that’s supposed to be a reassurance or an apology for what comes next. “Are you sure it’s about him being worse by comparison? Or is it, uh … the other way around?”
Amity makes a confused little sound, trying to translate what her girlfriend’s saying into something even remotely understandable.
“Or is it about you making yourself look better and feeling better about yourself?” Willow finishes Luz’s thought.
“No!” Amity protests, and she’s very much full of conviction. For about two seconds. “I just … I just want you to be a little bit more careful around him, okay? All of you.” She sees Willow’s expression, and she adds hurriedly, “Not because I consider any of you weak. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” She swallows. “I care about you.”
There. All better. As far as admissions go, this one is pretty serious for Amity, and all of them must know it.
Willow re-wraps the towel around her head, arranging it into something a bit more presentable.
“When Hunter screws up, it doesn’t take him a decade to admit that and try to rectify it, you know?” she says.
There’s silence. Which is not normal, it’s the kitchen, there should be all kinds of sounds, the clinking silverware, chewing, chomping, being generally confused by human foods. Amity didn’t know her face could grow any hotter, but she stands corrected.
“I saw Hunter take the books off the shelves,” Willow says eventually. “I’d better help him dust those.”
She leaves the safety of the kitchen and willingly joins the Golden Guard on his fictional quest, and it’s bad, and it’s dangerous, and it’s all Amity’s fault.
Vee has slipped away at some point. Nobody noticed, her presence and her trauma forgotten. Amity feels terrible about it, and she feels even more terrible upon realizing that some part of her is happy that she has found an ally in the basilisk.
.
Two days later, the Golden Guard collapses.
It’s not dramatic or spectacular, nothing gets spilled or broken. He’s been moving a bit sluggishly for the past hour, and he’s been unusually quiet, given that there was no Mrs. Noceda in sight. Normally, he’d behave like that only in her presence. Without the adult in the room, he’d usually be infuriatingly loud and obnoxious. There’s been some unhealthy sheen to his skin, as if he were sweating profusely, even though it was chilly in here. They were gathered around the crystal cube and he was standing in his usual place, probably believing he’s guarding the door (from what exactly? The most dangerous person was already in the room, and it was him). Normally he’d stand on alert, his back ramrod straight, but perhaps this time he has decided to slack off, since he was leaning against the wall. And then he just sort of slid down that wall onto the floor with a thump.
They jump off the couch. Willow’s the first one to get to him, and she’s already shaking him by the shoulders.
“Hunter? Are you okay? Hunter?”
He mumbles something unintelligible. His eyelids flutter for a second but then they stop as he falls silent. In a second, Gus is by his side as well, and Luz follows. Seems like the only strategy they can collectively come up with is yelling his name to no avail and grabbing at him in panic. Only Flapjack seems weirdly unaffected by the entire affair.
“Is he breathing?” Amity asks because somebody has to, and apparently no one else has enough presence of the mind.
Something finally clicks. Amity’s question must have activated the right part of Luz’s brain, as she’s immediately transformed from a panicked teen into a veterinarian’s daughter. Frankly, it’s amazing. And she looks really good with that no-nonsense expression.
“Make room,” she says with such a certainty that both Gus and Willow obey instinctively. She takes her human scroll out of her pocket and for some unfathomable reason holds it against the Golden Guard’s lips.
“He’s breathing alright,” she says authoritatively after a second. Only now Amity notices that the screen is slightly fogged.
They all sigh with relief, though it’s silly when you think about it. Of course he’s breathing. Nobody just dies out of nowhere, not when there’s no magic involved.
Luz holds her finger to the Golden Guard’s jugular, her eyebrows pinched. She’s counting under her breath and with every second her expression grows more concerned.
Instead of saying anything, she puts her scroll to her ear. They all hear it emit some strange repetitive noise which Luz is clearly finding frustrating.
“Mom’s not picking up,” she grunts. “I think we should try 911.”
“What’s 911?” Willow asks, and inch by inch she’s getting closer to the Golden Guard, as if readying to protect him from mysterious numbers. “What’s happening?”
“It’s the human emergency crow number,” Gus says, and despite the circumstances, he’s very pleased with himself. “So that they could send an amoeba to lance him.”
That certainly does not clear up the confusion, especially since now even Luz appears momentarily lost. Then, there’s a spark of recognition in her eyes.
“Oh.” She smiles weakly. “No, nobody’s lancing Hunter. And there are no amoebas involved. They’re like the Healing Coven. Or like Mom, but for humans.” Her expression once again drops. “Still, now that I think about it, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea anyway. What if they examine him?”
“Isn’t that the point?” Amity asks, genuinely at loss.
Vee shakes her head.
“If they examine him, what will they find? They’ll notice he’s not human. And people in this realm can react …” The basilisk falters. “Badly to such discoveries.”
“Camila didn’t,” Willow points out, already cradling the Golden Guard’s head protectively on her lap.
Vee swallows nervously.
“Y-yes. But not everyone here is Camila,” she just says sadly, and it’s clearly supposed to hold some meaning. Amity has no idea what it is, especially when there’s a whole different realization dawning on her.
“Luz,” she starts speaking very slowly. “What exactly were you looking for?”
“His pulse. And it’s … it’s… ” Luz hesitates, trying to stop the panic from reaching her voice and failing miserably. “Not good. Very slow.”
There we go.
“For a witch?” Amity inquires with emphasis because her girlfriend is amazing and brave and sweet and smart and resourceful and beautiful, but Amity’s also quite certain she has never received a first aid training from a witch doctor. She would tell her, and she would spare no detail.
It’s ridiculous how quickly Luz’s expression changes. She should get a whiplash from it. She opens her mouth as if to protest, then she stops herself, shaking her head, and then she just smiles sheepishly.
Willow’s already taking the Golden Guard’s pulse again, brows furrowed in concentration.
“I’m not sure. It’s kinda slow, but it’s not that bad,” she declares.
Luz just suddenly sits right where she was standing, and it looks more like collapsing than making a conscious decision.
“Okay, then,” she says, trembling slightly. “Okay. That’s okay.”
A wave of relief washes over Amity as well, and she has no idea where did it come from. It’s the Golden Guard, and Amity should be annoyed with him for scaring Luz like that.
“Sooo. What’s wrong with him?” Gus asks after they’ve spent an appropriate amount of time being overjoyed that the Golden Guard’s currently not dying.
They look at the older boy. His eyelids flutter for a moment, and he makes a small sound at the back of his throat. Then he curls into a ball, his fist clenching on the hem of Willow’s skirt. And then he relaxes.
“I think he might just be asleep.” Willow says very quietly.
“You’re kidding, right?” Gus asks, and perhaps his disbelief would sound sincere if he wasn’t whispering. “You saw what happened. He dropped on the floor like a bag of toes. That’s not what falling asleep looks like.”
Willow stares at him.
“And do you know what Hunter’s falling asleep looks like?”
“Well, not exactly, but—“
“Do any of you know what it looks like?” Willow whispers. “Because I sure don’t. And come to think about it, I didn’t know what he looks like fully asleep either.” She looks down at the boy curled on his side. Flapjack flies down and starts to settle in the blonde hair, clearly planning to spend there quite some time. “Until now.”
“I mean, I haven’t seen him asleep, true, but I think he’s an early bird,” Gus says quietly. “You know what he calls ‘sleeping in.’ Coven must have really done a number on him. So it figures that he’s already awake when I get up.”
“Doesn’t exactly explain him being awake when we’re falling asleep,” Luz deadpans. “Whenever I get up to go to pee, he’s awake. And you know I have a tiny bladder.”
Gus rolls his eyes. “Don’t even get me started,” he groans. “My mat’s on your path, you wake me up like three times a night. There should be some rule about soda after dinner specifically for you.”
“Great,” Willow whispers with thinly veiled annoyance. “Now that we’ve established that, did you see Hunter asleep any of those times Luz stepped on you on her way to the bathroom?”
“Nope.”
Amity takes a deep breath. She refuses to whisper, but somehow she also ends up speaking in a weirdly quiet manner. “That’s because he doesn’t sleep. He watches us,” she says, narrowly stopping herself from adding ‘like a creep.’
“Batata, what do you mean?” Luz asks in alarm. “For how long it’s been like that? You knew he does that?”
Willow and Gus give Amity accusatory looks. Willow would probably look intimidating had there not been the Golden Guard’s head with a bird on it on her lap, and had its owner not picked this exact moment to start snoring softly.
Why are they angry with her?
“I tried to warn you, guys,” she tries to explain. “And you told me I’m paranoid. I’ve said it so many times, we need to be careful around him, we never know what’s going on in his head. You just didn’t want to listen.”
“Wow,” says Willow. “Just. Wow.”
Luz gives an exasperated sigh, but before she can get a word in, Gus has already jumped to his feet, puffing out his small chest in a way not that different from the Golden Guard’s palisman when it gets angry.
“For Titan’s sake, we’re not worried because he’s dangerous, Amity! We’re worried because he’s terrible at taking care of himself. And he’s our friend!”
It’s stupid, it’s childish, and her mother would give her an earful if she saw her stubbornness, but Amity can’t stop herself from muttering “Speak for yourself” under her breath. It’s clear that once again the Golden Guard has managed to successfully play the pity card, and is turning Amity’s friends against her while not even being conscious. It’s impressive, Amity must admit. Boscha could learn so much from him.
It would have probably turned into an ugly argument, it had the full potential to do so. But whatever Gus is going to say next, he’s stopped by the strangest keening noise, as if there was a wounded animal in the room, too scared to make a sound but too terrified to keep quiet. It’s pathetic, desperate and of course it’s coming from the Golden Guard.
It’s difficult, but he does manage to curl into himself even more. His head falls off Willow’s lap in the process and thuds against the floor, but it doesn’t seem to wake him up. His fingers twitch convulsively as his entire frame trembles.
He’s not crying, though. There are no tears on his cheeks, and that means he’s not crying.
“Hunter?” Willow asks, trying to put her hand on one of his to stop it from trembling. He jerks his hand away, cradling it to his chest, the pitiful sounds, now something between a sob and a whisper, still spilling from his mouth. “Hunter, it’s only a dream,” she tries again, her hand now hovering awkwardly over his figure, as if unsure whether to try to touch him again.
“No,” he chokes out, and then his words, however quiet, become clear. “No, no, please, it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Has he—?” Gus starts asking and doesn’t finish the sentence, giving Amity an accusatory look.
But the Golden Guard has very obviously not heard a word Amity has said for the past few minutes, too consumed with what’s been happening in his own, no longer private nightmare.
“Don’t, please, please, don’t.” His voice is getting louder and there’s a note of panic to it. “Uncle, please, I’m loyal, I’m loyal, I swear, please, please, listen—“
Amity just raises her eyebrow at the last part. No wonder he doesn’t want to fall asleep in their presence, he must know that’s when he shows his true colors.
He doesn’t sound very menacing right now. It’s difficult to feel smug about yourself being one hundred percent right when he’s tossing like that, eyes squeezed shut, face mostly covered with his hands, fingers tangled in his hair. He keeps on babbling, repeating the same phrases over and over again with urgency. He tries to shrink into himself so hard he hits his nose with his knee, and the sensation sends him into another fit.
And this time he starts screaming, and now there’s nothing coherent to it anymore.
Willow sits there, frozen, her expression stuck between sympathy and horror as the Golden Guard suddenly yanks at his hair, kicking his legs at no one in particular and wailing like a hurt animal. His palisman is trying to peck at his hands, probably in order to wake him up.
Luz is the first one to approach the Golden Guard again, slightly touching his shoulder. Oddly enough, it’s Vee who follows her suit, grabbing his ankles so that he doesn’t hurt himself while trashing violently. Gus’ too puny to accomplish anything, but it doesn’t stop him from putting his hands on the Golden Guard’s arm while Willow, oh Titan, is Willow trying to stroke the guy’s hair?
“Shh,” she says as if she were addressing a child. “It’s okay, he’s not here.”
At least Amity assumes that’s what she’s saying. It’s mostly lip reading, since every sound gets drowned in the wails of the Golden Guard or whatever has possessed him.
“Hunter, you’re safe,” Luz assures him, but her voice wavers too much to make anything she’s saying even remotely believable. “You’re safe. C’mon, buddy, it’s just a nightmare. Uhh, a daymare. It’s not real.”
The thing is. The thing is, judging by the Golden Guard’s reaction, whatever he’s seeing, it’s very much real to him, and he just keeps on screaming as if he was being skinned alive. His fingers dig into his scalp and while it’s really suspicious that he keeps his gloves on at all times, it’s good he has them on at that specific moment. If it weren’t for them, he would probably be dragging his nails across the skin and drawing blood.
But then he moves his hand towards his eye socket, and nobody has any idea how to deal with a gouged eye without calling the human healers, and so Luz grabs the Golden Guard’s wrist, yanking it away, and this time she uses force.
“Hunter, stop! You’re hurting yourself!” she yells. And when it has no effect, she tries again, this time phrasing it a bit differently and using a very different tone. Luz is smart, and it’s in point of fact ingenious that she’s come up with that. “Golden Guard,” she says. “Cease immediately, that’s an order.”
He does cease.
A lot of other things happen too, and none of them should be surprising. Amity’s been mentally preparing for that for days, and yet it still comes to her as a shock when the Golden Guard’s eyes snap open, his gaze still unseeing but the body already on the move as all hell breaks loose.
He tackles Luz down. He’s a trained soldier, and she’s Luz. He immobilizes her in one swift move, one of his knees already on her chest and his hands wrapped around her throat. “No,” he grunts. “My name’s Hunter. And I’m done listening.”
Perhaps the hurt animal simile was much more on point than Amity cares to admit. It’s the wounded ones that are most dangerous after all.
Luz is too shocked to even defend herself, and by the time she gathers her wits, she’s already been deprived of air for a few seconds. She claws at his hands hopelessly.
“I’m not going back,” the Golden Guards pants, baring his teeth. “I’m not going back. Not going back.”
It’s like he’s stuck in a loop, and it stops only when he’s engulfed in Amity’s abomination and dragged away. He’s struggling to get out, his feet dangling above the ground, and at some point he tries to sink his teeth into the abomination goo to free himself, which is just preposterous. Flapjack keeps on diving at Amity with angry warbles, but he’s easy to swat away.
Nobody’s paying attention to the Golden Guard and his palisman, now that Luz is trying to regain her breath and bursting with a coughing fit. There are bruises already forming around her neck.
“’m fine, ‘m fine,” she wheezes out, trapped in Amity’s tight embrace. “You can let go now, batata, you’re choking me.”
Amity does let go, and as they process what Luz has said, they start laughing, and maybe, maybe there’s a hint of hysteria to it, but it’s not like it’s completely unwarranted.
Gus brings Luz a glass of water, Amity keeps asking whether her girlfriend’s alright, Willow is frantically opening all the windows as if letting more air into the room was supposed to actually help. Vee disappears, saying she’s going to look for an icepack for Luz’s neck, though it doesn’t sound like such a good idea, honestly, more like yet another thing that’s going to make Luz’s throat sore.
The Golden Guard’s just there, forgotten for a minute, trashing furiously against the abomination restraints. His angry yelling must have stopped at some point. When Amity’s finally ready to pay any attention to the deranged boy, he’s just hanging there limp and muttering something under his breath. And then he has the audacity to raise his head, take a look around, blink three times and ask in a raspy voice, “What’s happening?”
“You’ve had a daymare,” Luz says as if it were supposed to explain anything. Her voice is hoarse, but she doesn’t sound even remotely angry with the lunatic who’s just tried to strangle her.
The Golden Guard gives her a confused look. “I don’t know what that means.”
He once again tries to break free, kicking his feet comically and making frustrated noises.
“I think you can let him go,” Willow says, looking at Amity. “It’s him.”
And just like that, all is apparently forgotten. Amity wants to tell them it’s been him all along. That they’ve just witnessed him attack Luz, and he’s been proclaiming his loyalty to the Emperor moments before that. She wants to remind them that the Golden Guard has made his intentions towards Luz very clear back at the Eclipse Lake, and now all of them can see he’s dangerous and not to be trusted.
But she sees their expressions, she sees Luz awkwardly raise her collar to hide the marks his fingers have left on her neck and give him a reassuring smile. She sees Gus wince in sympathy as the Golden Guard’s legs keep kicking pointlessly and his toe collides with the wall in a manner that is probably quite painful, and Gus doesn’t seem to care that this pain is very much deserved. She sees Willow give the older boy that look she sometimes does, and the things that look entails make Amity’s skin crawl because maybe Willow doesn’t believe she needs to be protected, but if she’s really going to choose the Golden Guard as a love interest, then well, she does need somebody to knock some sense back into her before Belos’ lackey hurts her or sacrifices her in order to, to— to do something. Amity might not know what he’s up to, but he is up to something, and it’s probably not good.
But she lets him go with a heavy sigh.
She doesn’t lower him onto the floor carefully because let’s face it, that would be too much. She does let him go, though, and if he abomination goo suddenly disappears while he’s still a few feet above the ground, he has only himself to blame.
He apologizes numerous times after that. Of course he does, he’s living under Camila’s roof, he doesn’t know this world any more than Amity or Willow do, he depends on the goodwill of the mother of the girl he has tried to strangle.
They catch him sneaking off to the woods with a sleeping bag and a backpack full of stale biscuits, bottled water and the seeds Flapjack likes so much. He does look guilty about stealing the food, but he says he had chosen carefully the stuff that has already expired. He doesn’t understand why else the rest of them is angry at him about trying to leave.
Amity sort of understands, though not fully, and it’s frustrating. Eventually, she just shrugs because the Golden Guard might be dangerous, but it’s better to have him here to keep an eye on him.
There’s some comment from Gus about all of it being super messed up, there are some concerned looks from Vee, a gasp from Mrs. Noceda when she sees the marks on her daughter’s neck. And there’s also Luz telling the Golden Guard he has impressive reflexes and sick moves, and that he must teach her one day how to tackle the opponent like that. And then they collectively act as if nothing happened, though Mrs. Noceda does set up a separate sleeping place for the Golden Guard in the basement.
Gus decides to follow him there. He says he’s going to be alright, they just have to make sure Hunter’s immobilized with a sleeping bag.
It’s absolutely hopeless.
.
The Golden Guard really likes to spend time around Willow, and Amity can’t figure out what’s his angle because if he’s trying to seduce the girl to use her for his own purposes, he’s doing an impressively poor job. As far as seduction goes, Amity’s never seen something this miserable. And she’s seen herself trying to talk to Luz.
He keeps ranting about things nobody asked him about, and yes, they might be interesting at times, okay, but they have nothing to do with their current situation. He’s jumpy and annoying, and he clearly believes he’s the one protecting everyone in the household. His face turns red any time he sees Willow look at him, his voice gets even more annoying and high-pitched when she addresses him, and he tries really hard to impress her with the strangest accomplishments. Learning a new flying trick indoors. Teaching Flapjack how to mimic a doorbell — an extremely unsuccessful undertaking, by the way. Being able to run up and down the stairs faster than Gus and for an extended period of time, which is just plain ridiculous given how short Gus’ legs are. Holding hot mugs not by the handle. Knowing a disturbing amount of facts about the human spaceship show Gus has shown him the other day. Being able to hold his breath for two full minutes. Learning names of random human objects, and then pointing at them and yelling “teevee remote” as if that was some crucial piece of information.
One time before dinner, he hurries into the room excitedly, and shows Willow a particularly round potato he has peeled carefully so that it kind of resembles an egg. Willow schools her expression into something serious and appreciative. Cool, she says. Not a muscle twitches on her face as she examines the potato and compliments the Golden Guard’s craftsmanship and attention to detail. She manages to hold the laugher bubbling in her throat until the boy is out of the earshot, having promised to find other interesting potatoes in the bag.
Amity doesn’t understand why someone has given him a knife in the first place. It’s a bit annoying, how Vee laughs with Willow, and even pretends to examine the potato and comment on the smoothness of its surface. She should know better.
And yet, after the initial awkward week, it seems like Vee and the Golden Guard have reached some kind of understanding. Vee actually joins him when he goes out to, as he calls it, establish the perimeter, which is basically walking around looking very angry. And she tags along on her own accord.
It’s a bit more complicated, Vee explains when Amity directly asks her about the Golden Guard’s role in the oppression of her people.
Basilisks weren’t the only victims of Belos, she adds, as if that was supposed to clear Belos’ right hand man’s name instead of making him complicit in even more atrocities. Amity’s briefly worried he might do some horrifying experiments on the basilisk, but then again, there’s no equipment to do that here.
Amity makes a point to always be there when Willow and the Golden Guard interact. Just in case. She joins them whenever it’s the turn for one of them to do groceries and the other wants to come along. She spends way too much time in the garden, where Willow is growing vegetables to help out Camila, and towards where the Golden Guard gravitates every day.
So when the Golden Guard approaches Willow and there’s no one else around, there’s always Amity. Willow seems very annoyed with that development, but well, she’s going to thank Amity later.
Luz calls her a chaperone. Amity doesn’t know what that means. Luz tries to explain and then becomes embarrassed, and Amity still has no idea what was it about. The entire idea is ridiculous. Yes, humans are different and weird, but there are some limits to that. They can’t be sex-obsessed to that extent, they wouldn’t be able to function. And she’s not concerned with that, that’s the least of her worries when she looks at the Golden Guard making the moves on Willow. This whole relationship has started out with a kidnapping. A textbook case of Scapula Syndrome. Hence, she must have misunderstood the meaning of the term Luz used. Because it doesn’t apply here. It would explain why Camila’s so insistent on Amity sharing the bedroom with Willow, and Luz sleeping on the bunk bed with Vee, though.
Willow confronts her about the chaperone thing once. After that, Amity tries to be more discreet, sending someone else to the garden under the guise of fetching something or needing to ask a question. It quickly turns out to be a very faulty strategy, since Luz comes back immediately, very excited and whispering something about not wanting to interrupt them when it’s clear Willow might touch Hunter’s hand any moment now.
Thankfully, Amity has a crucial question about the placement of Willow’s hairbrush to ask. She gets there in the nick of time.