Making Waffles

Melody of the Heart

When Willow visits Hunter, it is a rainy day so he is painting in his apartment. She knocks on the door and he answers with his paintbrush still in his hand, a few smudges of purple and blue paint on his cheeks.

"Hey Hunter. Can I come in?" she asks.

He smiles, "Yeah. Sure. I'm just working at home today." He holds the door and gestures for her to enter, closing it behind her, "Do you want me to make you anything? I can take a break to cook lunch."

"You don't have to—I'm not hungry yet and you don't have to stop painting just because I show up."

He walks back toward his workbench, brushing her hand with his as he passes, the little touch an invitation for her to take his hand. It is something else they've done since that first little moment when she linked her pinky finger with his, a way for him to ask for touch when he's feeling too shy or insecure to ask.

Willow laces her fingers with his, leans in, and lightly kisses his cheek, "So...what are you working on today?"

"It's a platypus. Like, they're so weird, nobody's going to believe they're not a demon, and I love them." He picks it up and shows it to her, "I was mixing the colours for the body when you knocked. I'm making it purple, like this little stuffed toy I found in Mom's basement."

She takes the Palisman in her hands and gently turns it over, "Every time you let me hold one of them, I'm just stunned by how beautifully made they are. You're incredibly talented, Hunter. I'm so proud of you for so much, but the way you've embraced wild magic is one of the things I'm most proud of you for. When we'd met, if you'd have told me the Golden Guard would leave it all behind to create the things he was raised to destroy, I would have laughed."

He sits down and she hands him back the platypus, "Yeah, I would have, too. But you know, this persistent human kept telling me I was mistaken and this team of kids I'd only just met showed me what I was missing and eventually...eventually it got through. I mean, accidentally ending up in Belos' mind kinda pushed everything forward by like...oh, probably a few months, but still. A little bird told me my world didn't have to be so hard and I believed him."

"Have you told Waffles about Flapjack?" Willow asks.

He nods, "Yeah. It was actually part of what I said to wake her up. She's known from the start that Flapjack was the reason I'm here and I want the kind of bond he gave me to be what I can give everyone who adopts one of my Palismen. She knows she's not a replacement, too, because no Palisman can be replaced. They're too special and unique for that. And she understands that he's special to me, even now. She told me she loves him, too, because thanks to him, she has her witch. And I think that's really sweet."

Willow sets Clover on the workbench and she buzzes to life, flitting over to the windowsill where Waffles sits chirping at the rain, "It is—she's a wonderful little bird. How did you decide on the blue jay?"

"Do you remember the pair that lived at Mom's?"

"Yeah. They were always fun to watch."

"They're the inspiration for Waffles. They'd sing every morning—they were the first thing I'd hear when I got up before everybody else. Especially right at the start, for those few weeks when I couldn't sleep in. I'd come upstairs, get ready for the day, and go sit on the back step, just listening, trying to get used to the sounds of the new world. And every morning, I watched the blue jays and listened to them singing. I loved listening to them. They didn't sound like the other songbirds."

Willow drags over a beanbag from the living room and sits beside his workbench, "They sound more like crows to me, but they also have their own song that's not as demanding as the bigger birds. They're special, kinda like they're of two worlds."