Villainous Thing | The Golden Guard | The Owl House

Let Me See Those Smokey Eyes

Willow should have known that it would upset him. She shouldn't have pushed so hard.

Why did she say that?

Well—she knows exactly why she had. It made no sense for a boy who so obviously loved his Palisman to still insist that they were the enemy. That they were wild and dangerous. It made no sense for a boy like Hunter to want to go back to a castle that so obviously stifles him.

A castle where Willow does not think that he is even safe.

But she hadn't meant to send him away. She had just wanted him to think, for a moment, about what he was saying. Willow has not known Hunter for very long, but she has already picked up on his talent of strangling his own thoughts until he's repeating what he's told to say, told to think.

It almost felt unnatural, hearing something like that from someone so obviously opinionated and smart. If he would just stop and listen—

But she hadn't meant for him to leave.

She hadn't meant to make him panic either, make him feel as if he had to get away from her. She had seen that look on his face again, the one similar to the one he had when she was painting his face. Like he was afraid of something that wasn't there.

She's not crying, but her throat stings and her chest is tight. She doesn't know why she's so upset, but she is. Clover rubs her head up against Willow's cheek, buzzing soothingly.

"I'm okay." She says quietly, ambling through the crowd. She wants her dads.

She's only known this boy for a day. It shouldn't affect her so much, but he's her friend now, and Willow cares very deeply for her friends. Even if they're from the Emperor's Coven.

But she isn't sure if Hunter even has much of a choice when it comes to being in the Coven. According to Luz, Hunter is a witch without magic of his own and is the Emperor's family. She can't imagine what it must be like, to be family and servant to the most powerful man on the Boiling Isles.

But she can at least figure out that Hunter likely can't exactly just leave, even if he wanted to.

She stops outside the diner, shifting on her feet. The day has grown progressively hotter, the approaching afternoon sun making Willow feel sweaty and overheated rather than pleasantly warm. She summons her scroll and texts her dad, telling him that she's ready to go home.

She hadn't even been able to look through the plant shops. She doesn't feel like doing so anymore, not with her stomach rolling into knots.

She opens the plastic bag she had gotten from the book stand, taking out the book she had bought. The one Hunter had said he liked. She sits down at one of the open tables and flips through the pages as Clover curiously buzzes across from her.

It's full of diagrams of plants and certain animals that are part plant themselves, columns of informative text next to the pictures. Most of it Willow has already heard of before, but there are a few pages full of information that even Willow knows nothing about. She reads through it as the sun grows hotter until her parents find her like that, sweaty and intensively reading through her book.

"Hey, flower bud." Her dad smiles, several bags weighing down his arms. But as he looks around, his smile falls slightly, "Where's Hunter?"

Willow slowly closes her book, her thumb nervously running over the cover, "Oh. He uh—had to go back home."

Her pa walks up to her, spelling his bags away, "Hey, what's wrong?" His large palm gently squeezes her shoulder.

She shrugs, sighing, "I said something that upset him." She chews on the inside of her cheek, her fingers fiddling with the spine of her book.