Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Collector knew how to put on a show.

All those lights, all those colors, like magical fireworks for Luz’s King-ceanera… it was a gorgeous sight and everyone was so happy.

Luz… was so happy…

Amity had her right arm looped around Luz’s left, leaning against each other for comfort. The realms had come so far in the last few years.

Luz let her attention drift to Eda and King, standing so close to her right. She never expected such a wonderful night, or such a wonderful life.

She finally felt like she belonged.

Luz smiled at the strange pair who embraced her in their life. She whispered, “Eda, King… thank you… for everything.”

Eda wrapped her left arm around Luz’s shoulder. The old witch was proud and playful, “Right back at ya, kiddo.”

Luz held out her right hand, almost joking as she said, “Weirdos?”

Eda and King each placed a hand on hers, and they both agreed. “Weirdos.”

Luz felt her vision blurring at the corners. She was so happy, she was getting all misty-eyed. The Collector’s light show was ramping up for the big finale, and Luz gasped in that realization. “They’re nearly gone!”

Luz almost forgot to be grateful. The Collector had made it so nice! Instinct took her for a moment. She rushed forward in front of the others, “Okay, everyone! On the count of three! One, two… three!”

She turned toward the starry sky and the Collector up there, and everyone joined her in that moment yelling and waving, “Bye-eee!!”

The Collector’s star gave a final loop in the sky, a big luminous gesture… before part of the blue star seemed to break off. It turned, twisted - more gold than blue actually - and headed straight for their group.

Luz started to stand a little more rigid. She grimaced between her teeth, “Uh, King? Is he, uh, getting closer?”

The falling golden star had several people diving out of the way before it smashed hard into the ground, taking out several balloons and tables in the process.

Smoke, sparkles and luminescent ribbons were still dancing off of the crater and the golden glow, shrouding the space for a moment. Then the gold disappeared, and someone was coughing inside the smoke. 

Several people went to help, but a few big wing-beats helped clear it up from the inside.

A faded, brownish bathrobe. A ‘Bad Girl Coven’ shirt. Loose black pants, decorated with the Titan’s glyphs. A single, yellow left eye… as the right eye socket was currently empty. He stood somewhere between two and three meters tall.

Sure, Luz recognized him immediately, but even she didn’t know what to make of what she was seeing.

The fluffy, bearded old man tried to brush some of the dirt off his sleeves and said, “Sorry about that! My fault. Didn’t know I could fall off.” He looked around at his accidental damage and adjusted his bathrobe. “My first time flying through space. I didn’t mean to… crash the party.”

At least two people started shrieking in shock or glee, and one more was frothing at the mouth in excitement. 

With a single claw, the fluffy old man made a dark, crackling circle of energy - and broken tables promptly floated up and knit back together.

The Collector himself landed a few seconds later. “Papa!” He said in frustration, “I told you to hang on!!”

Amity grabbed Luz’s arm again. “Luz?”

“Yeah-huh?”

“Did we just get dad-joked by the Titan?”

Luz swallowed very hard and glanced at several of her friends, particularly a flustered and frozen King.

……

The Titan gave Luz ‘the last bit of his life.’

Her human body couldn’t hold on to it forever, but it was enough. She managed to do such wonders. She saved King and everyone else. The Titan was so proud of her.

And when that last bit of life left Luz, it had nowhere else to go. The Titan’s body was officially dead. 

That small fragment of his life was drawn back to ‘the In Between Realm,’ that weird watery place, just like Luz when she died…

In that place, the Titan managed to stay afloat for more years than he could count, but he had nothing left. He was falling through the water at last.

It was colder than he expected… unpleasant…

Was this drowning?

Ah… well… he figured it was time… That’s alright, you know. He got to hang on for ages, see King and Luz and Eda… Sometimes he could sway things from that realm, just a little, like giving Luz the gylphs, helping Eda find King, or nudging Hooty a certain way. 

But that time was over. 

At least he managed to do one last thing for his only surviving child…

He failed all the rest. Maybe he’d see them on the other side. That’d be nice.

So if it’s time for him to go, so be it.

They stopped Belos. They saved King. End of story. A good place to end the chapter.

Someone grabbed the Titan’s wrist. It was too dark to even see them under the water, but the Titan felt the touch, felt the strength.

He stopped sinking.

The shadow man said, “You should take your own advice!”

The shadow held him stronger by the wrist, and then somehow they were pulling him up. “What was it you said? If you go under without a portal, you really will be dead-looking!”

Was that supposed to be a joke? Maybe the Titan would have laughed if he had the strength, but he couldn’t speak or even open his eyes.

There was a single great light, a flash of radiance through the space in between, and the Titan fell asleep…

……

It was weird. There were moments he thought he was awake, and others he was sure were dreams. 

It couldn’t be ‘death.’ He was very familiar with death’s door - he spent millenia right next to it.

Right now, he felt awake… Sleepy, exhausted, barely conscious and tired like the dead, but awake… Still couldn’t see though…

The same voice in the dark spoke again. “Well, you’re looking better! How are you feeling?”

“Strange,” the Titan said, and he honestly didn’t know he could talk before then. He felt different - like he wasn’t a whole country, a mountain range, and he wasn’t resting in water either. Was this a bed? Like the witches had? He tried to move his limbs. He could feel them shifting ever so slightly, but he still felt devoid of energy. “Where are we?”

“My house,” the voice answered. “Relatively speaking anyway. This is not my native language. But I hoped you’d get the metaphor.”

The Titan at least had the muscles to frown. “I’m supposed to be dead.”

The voice chuckled softly. “You’re supposed to be many things! Personally I prefer you alive.” 

The Titan felt a hand on his shoulder, giving him something of a friendly pat. It’d been so long since anyone touched him at all and it made the Titan flinch. 

“Sorry,” the voice was quick to apologize. “I just mean… well, you were mostly dead. I saw and heard some very strange things happening on your planet. I really thought I’d be too far away to help anyone in time, but you’re a titan and then I sensed the last bit of your life leaving and… I managed to catch some of it at the last second.”

The hand in the dark. The Titan remembered it.

“I’m trying to make you a new body now, one that your energy won’t burn out, but this is the first time I’ve tried to do this for a titan. Sorry. My kind… don’t really handle death well.”

“Your kind?” The Titan was half asleep and overwhelmed, but that part stood out. He repeated that phrase and he wasn’t sure if he felt a sensation of hope or dread from it.

Punching a hole between dimensions is not an easy task. The Titan only knew of one other creature who had the power for it.

The voice stammered for a moment, “I… am… not alone…” 

He hurried to explain, “I mean I am alone with you now, just not categorically. I have… people.”

The Titan tried to lean up, but couldn’t manage it. His body was a dead weight on the bed. It made him hurt everywhere and the Titan uttered a soft groan. “You were about to say something else, weren’t you?”

The Titan heard an awkward fidgeting in the room - a rustle of robes, a crackling of energy. The Titan may not have the eyes to see, but there was more to a Titan than meets the… eye.

The magic around him shifted, was adjusted, and the Titan’s pain went away. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The other’s voice sounded a little more strained, “Listen, I’m trying to reincorporate your practically-dead life essence into a new material body based on your existing corpse - that is, the currently very inhabited Boiling Isles, and I don’t think either of us want to kill the thousands living on it right now - and this is not an easy process for you or me, but I’m doing the best I can, so… can we table the emotionally difficult conversations until you’re in the clear? I really don’t want to spend the next few millennia with your death on my conscience.”

The Titan was nearly dead, but not dumb. He’d been around. That sounded like a very complicated way of saying ‘Archivist,’ but the Titan chose to keep that knowledge to himself.

He was quiet for a bit more, but then the Titan said, “Thank you.”

“…You’re welcome…” 

The Titan was pretty sure the other man smiled.

……

It was still touch and go there for a while. Managing to save Luz was comparatively child’s play. Humans were not the most complicated species, biologically or energetically. It helped that the Titan was already sort of living in the In Between Realm when he caught her.

A titan, on the other hand… well… saving him was way harder.

Quite frankly, a fully-grown titan was just as strong (or stronger) than any of the Archivists. At some point, this one realized he just couldn’t fix the Titan all the way.

The voice in the dark was very sad about that. “You won’t be… as strong as you used to be. I’m sorry. I just… I don’t have enough of ‘you’ to work with. I couldn’t save enough.”

The Titan said, “But I’m alive.”

A part of him anyway. 

The voice was quiet for a few seconds. Then they apologized again, “I’m sorry, I just nodded my head, but I forgot you can’t see that.”

The Titan could move his limbs more these days. He felt like he could move his head, maybe even do some magic - but the voice had basically begged him not to try, not to do anything that might impact his heart or soul. The connection was shaky. 

If the Titan suffered the magical equivalent of an organ transplant rejection, the Archivist didn’t know if he could save him again.

The Titan asked, “Will I ever be able to see again? Or do you intend to keep me this way?”

The Titan could feel the other’s discomfort even without seeing it. 

“No,” the voice said awkwardly - then he quickly clarified, “I mean ‘no, I don’t intend to keep you blind,’ not ‘no, you’ll never see again.’ Your eyes are … sufficient, right now… I just…”

The Titan knew, “You don’t want to upset me with what I’ll see.”

Another quiet moment. 

“…Sorry. I just nodded again…”

The Titan rumbled with a soft laugh - a father’s friendly amusement. “After all the years I spent afraid to see one of you again, I never expected you’d be so… uncertain.” 

The voice gave a nervous laugh in reply. “Oh. Haha. Ha. You… um… What exactly were you… afraid to see?”

Maybe it was time. 

Not like the Titan really had a grasp of time in this place, or even how many days or months he’d slept in between. He wasn’t even sure if this was a real planet or some dimensional pocket. 

Still, the Titan took a risk. He didn’t want them to keep worrying. “I’ve known you were an Archivist from the day you first woke me. But you saved my life and have always treated me with respect. These are not the actions of a monster. Would you at least do me the honor of telling me my savior’s name?”

The discomfort in the room was as jagged as a knife, and getting sharper. The voice was fumbling again. “I… I don’t…” The man gulped once, tried to stern himself. “I don’t like that name anymore. I’m not with them.”

‘Not anymore,’ the Titan mentally assumed. Whether he was involved in the genocide of the titans was another question entirely. The Titan asked, “What would you like me to call you?”

The voice was quieter still - barely even a whisper. “…Keeper…”

“Keeper?” the Titan repeated.

Keeper mumbled, “It works, I guess… in this language… That’s what we were supposed to be, before… We were supposed to… keep things from dying… Keep them from disappearing…”

The Titan remembered their very first conversation. Keeper had told him then, ‘My kind don’t handle death well.’ Somewhere along the way, things must have changed.

“Keeper,” the Titan said his name again, this time with more resolve. “I like it. Thank you again.”

Keeper sounded more upset. “You shouldn’t thank me. You shouldn’t say anything nice to me at all! My brothers… my brothers were terrible, and I didn’t… I didn’t do enough to stop them…”

Could anyone?

The Titan replied, “You’re saving me now… so I can thank you for that.”

It didn’t help. Keeper hurried to leave, “I’ve gotta go. I have other patients. Please don’t do magic yet. You’ll hurt yourself.”

A light turned on - or perhaps the Titan just couldn’t see it before. He didn’t know. But he saw the back of an Archivist’s robe right as Keeper left through a glowing door. The door shut behind him, leaving the Titan on a miniscule moon, floating in space… a tiny existence surrounded by the Keeper’s celestial magic.

The magic was healing him still.

The night sky looked rather pretty, all things considered. 

The Titan laid back on the bed and took a deep breath, and wondered if he should have waited after all.

……

The Titan was still in and out of sleep for extended periods of time. Something about this place wasn’t just healing him, it was also building him, and maintaining him. He had flesh again but he barely felt hunger, and technically he hadn’t eaten in… well, however long it had been.

An immortal life is no guarantee for perfect recall; time - and memory - can get away from you.

Would have been nice to have a distraction though. He’d never gone so long without seeing King, and it worried him so. At least he knew they stopped Belos.

The Titan sat up on the bed, legs swaying over the edge. That fluffy tail of his flicked side to side.

He was in the process of stretching his wings when the glowing door opened.

The hooded figure floated inside. The right side of his robe was covered in stars, the left side was moon and dark. His face remained mostly in shadow, but the Titan could see a small smile. Keeper tried to give a friendly wave, “H-hello! You’re moving! Moving is good. I think.”

Keeper rubbed the right side of his golden face with a sleeve. “Not a zombie. You have skin. Very important.”

The Titan chose to smile back. “It is good to move again - in the realm of the living, that is.”

Keeper had a slight grimace. His right hand wobbled, “Eh, 50/50 on the ‘living realm’ part. But explaining that would be more confusing. No worries really!”

The Keeper floated around the miniscule moon. Small gestures of his hand were highlighting magical streams in the air. He adjusted them just a bit, snapped his fingers a few times to get things the way he wanted them. It wasn’t titan magic, but the Titan could still feel the subtle shifts around him.

Couldn’t quite put his finger on what that meant, or what the changes were intended to do… Yet the Titan still wanted to take that as a good sign. Feeling the world around him was a far cry different from watching the Owl House through a tiny box.

The Titan kept observing the Keeper’s work. Then the Titan asked, “I hate to be a bother, but… could you tell me how long I’ve been here? I don’t recognize any of these constellations… or how long I’ve been asleep…”

The Keeper kept his hands over a magical array. “Um… maybe? I mean… I would if I could, but as I said, we’re in a weird place and… uh… what’s a good measurement for you? Lunar revolutions in the Demon Realm? Solar? Galactic? …Oof. I’m a magician, not a mathematician. Oh! Easy fix!”

The Keeper turned toward the Titan and gave a quick snap of his fingers. Like a television screen, a glowing five-pointed star appeared in front of the Titan and displayed an image of the Boiling Isles. Then that image zoomed in. 

Some manner of clairvoyance or viewing spell, the Titan assumed.

The Titan gingerly touched the star screen with his own hands, and found he could change the perspective. He could even move it a bit, look around, see the people on the Isles… 

He recognized a number of them from watching King grow up. They hadn’t gotten that much older.

The Titan breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh good… it’s… only been a few years…”

Keeper floated a little closer. “Years? Oh. That’s… okay, I can work with that.” He still had to do some counting on his fingers as he mentally ran the conversions, “Cause if it’s only been a few years there, then… you were probably asleep for one or two years… and, uh, probably in and out of consciousness for a few… months at a time? Cause, again, making a body you won’t burn out, not easy.”

The Titan calmly reassured him, “I’m not complaining.” He gave the Keeper a big smile, “I expected to be dead. If you gave me even a little more time, I’m grateful.”

The Titan managed to find his child through the screen. King was drawing a glyph in the dirt and it made the Titan happier! King was starting to form his own glyphs!

Softly the Titan’s claw tips touched the star’s screen and his tail began to wag. 

Keeper started smiling more, too. He floated a bit closer to the Titan, sat next to him on the bed and asked him, “He means that much to you?”

The Titan glanced his way. “More than anything…” 

Keeper’s head fell a little lower. He couldn’t hide a bout of melancholy. 

The Titan regarded him again. “Do you have any children? Or loved ones?”

Keeper grimaced. He folded his hands in his sleeves as if to hide them. “No. My siblings, the Archivists… we’re children of the stars… but our birth is so rare, I don’t know how it even happens. I wouldn’t know how to have a kid if I wanted one…”

The Titan felt the urge to comfort him, to pat his shoulder or something like the Keeper once did, but he didn’t know if it was appropriate. “You sound lonely…”

Keeper scoffed once. He shifted a foot away. “Why should I be lonely?” He asked with so much sarcasm, it was obviously accurate. “I’ve probably lived for billions of years. I'll probably live for billions more. I can break through to other realms or fly eons in any direction of space… and even if I find some other life out there, I know I’ll outlive them… Loneliness just comes with the territory.”

The Titan carefully reached a hand and placed it on Keeper’s shoulder. It was the Keeper’s turn to flinch. The Titan just said, “I’ve outlived every friend and child I ever had… except one… I know it hurts, being alone.”

The Keeper sighed hard - and the Titan didn’t know if he even needed air or if that was just for dramatic emphasis.

The Keeper looked lower down and mumbled, “You guys are lucky. Titans, I mean. You radiate life. You can make it with such ease.” He gestured at the screen, “I’m not even talking about asexual reproduction. Even after you died, your bodies are constantly giving life to new magical creatures, new beings. Sentient life! Life is in your nature. I can seal it and heal it, or send out magic on autopilot. I can’t make new species. Keeping it alive… is the best thing I can do…”

The Titan knew, “You’re keeping me alive… I’m grateful for that.”

Keeper rubbed a sleeve at his nose. He sniffled once. “I owed it to you. My brothers did such terrible things to your people, just because they were afraid of you… threatened by you… I didn’t help. But I didn’t stop them either, and that feels just as bad. They were kids! All those kids and…”

“And you’re here now,” the Titan offered.

“Too late,” Keeper mumbled. He motioned to the stars, “I flew as far and fast as I could to get away. And by the time I hated myself enough to go back, all the titans were dead… I thought you were dead… I couldn't sense your son at all…”

The Titan felt his own hurt at those events. The loss of his children… and what he did out of anger. “That was my doing… I knew what I planned could kill me… so I hid his egg behind enough wards to keep him safe. I didn’t know the Collector could be a friend… or that you could be.”

Keeper shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the bed. “Wartime reparations,” he brushed it off. “Doesn’t make me good. Just makes me guilty.”

The Titan sat with that a moment. He was unsure how to disagree, or even if he should. But he remembered, “What about your other patients?”

Keeper frowned at him. “What about them?”

“You said you had others,” the Titan pointed at the glowing door. “Are you rebuilding them like me?”

Keeper gave a broken shrug of the shoulders, first his right and then his left. “Not all… You’re a… unique situation… Helping someone or even an entire species is usually way easier than with you. Life is so precious and rare in the realms, and I don’t want it to disappear… That’s how things started for us…” 

Keeper flapped his sleeves like wings, “We could fly for ages, even through dimensions, and not find anyone… so every time we do, it’s a reason to celebrate! But…” his arms fell again, “Sometimes things happen, and the life disappears. And that hurts…”

“…But, but the others figured it out! They had a plan! We could make it so we wouldn’t have to lose anything anymore!” 

With a few subtle gestures, Keeper created an illusion of a small creature in his hands. Then he made a web of magic around the figure, forming a protective barrier. “We’d protect life ourselves! A little from every species! We’d seal it up so it couldn’t be hurt or die ever again!”

Keeper slowly started to look ashamed again. “I thought that was the right idea for a while.” He flicked away the web which was really more like a net. “But I realized something from watching a smaller species… that being sealed away forever isn’t really living either.”

The Titan understood it better then. The passing of eons could warp your perspective. If titans could actually hurt them… if they were so desperate to stay alive, if they were so terrified of dying or losing everyone they saved… of a titan’s magic breaking them and the seals…

The Titan said, “Fear can make us do many bad things… even the fear of loneliness…”

It sounded trite.

Keeper waved the illusion out of existence. “You’re too generous. Some days I wonder if it was all a lie. Maybe the other Archivists just wanted power. Or bragging rights. ‘Who’s saved the most? Who has the best collection?’ They jumped at the chance to kill you titans before even getting to know you…”

The Titan sat with that for a moment. His own hands rested on his knees. “I don’t have an answer for that. But I’ve made my own mistakes. I trapped the Collector because I thought he was a villain.”

And he technically was, before King and Luz got through to him.

The Titan looked again at the glowing star screen. “You two are not what I expected… but it seems to me like you both need the same thing…”

Keeper looked at the screen. Somewhere on the Boiling Isles, King was bouncing with excitement and tossing lights all over. A squinting Eda was trying to cheer him on with one hand and a hook. 

Keeper asked, “And what’s that?”

The Titan replied, “Companionship…” The Titan smiled, “You might do well to talk to him. Because the Collector has also been lonely, for a very long time…”

Keeper’s expression was guarded, disquieted. He didn’t like the idea. “It’s too much of a risk… I’m responsible for everyone here… He could hurt you, or me, or them…”

“Or,” the Titan offered, “he might help you… because whatever your age, your origins, or your place in these realms… I can’t imagine you were ever meant to feel so alone.”

Keeper sighed again and rubbed at his chest. “I don’t know…”

The Titan changed the topic in a slight way, “When I’m able to leave here… will you let me go home? Or do you intend to keep me here forever?”

Keeper carefully shook his head at the last part. “You can go… when you’re healthy enough to travel…”

The Titan smiled more. He turned his gaze to the screen again and King’s attempts to draw a new glyph. “It would be awfully nice to hold him again…”

Keeper rubbed a hand through his white hair, pushing back the hood for once. “Yeah… I guess it would…”

At least in that moment, the Titan and the Keeper did not feel so alone.

……

They went for walks when Keeper thought it was safe for the Titan to leave that healing chamber, temporarily that is. 

The Titan had seen hospitals on the Boiling Isles, like those places run by the Healing Coven. Keeper’s house was more like a hospital than a home. 

The Titan had seen the Collector’s “spies” as well, those magic blue stars that had flown around the Isles, abducting witches and demons. Keeper had stars like that of his own, but they were more like nurses than spies. Emergency medical technicians. “Magic on autopilot,” he called it. Little more than abominations.

Most of the planets Keeper watched didn’t have sentient life - not like humans, witches and biped demons. Given enough time, maybe those planets would evolve it one day. Keeper did have plenty of time to spare. Keeper just gave the occasional pick-me-up to struggling creatures. 

They couldn’t really thank him, or even manage a conversation. 

The Titan didn’t want to make him self-conscious, but he had a feeling Keeper hadn’t really talked to anyone in a long time. 

Keeper floated along, a little more depressed as they passed another glowing door. “Sometimes helping a species is just a matter of moving a meteor, or adjusting the atmosphere. Other times…”

He gestured inside the door with one of his sleeves. A few animals were grazing on a field of plants, but the Titan couldn’t recognize either life form - the animal or the plant. 

“…other times, the best I can do is give them somewhere safe to live, for as long as I can keep them alive…”

The Titan could relate with that. He tried to give King someplace safe to grow up, but it could take a very long time for a titan to grow up. His spells were fading sooner than he expected. 

When Eda was flying by, the Titan took a risk… he’d seen her around the Isles before, and kind of liked her, too. He managed to let Eda in past the wards. She ended up being a great mom. 

She always did show an unexpected kinship with the Isles. Who better to raise another titan?

The Titan pointed at the strange creatures inside and wondered, “What are their names?”

Keeper grimaced for a moment. “Um… Bob?”

The Titan laughed and put his hands on his hips, “Did you just make that up?”

Keeper shrugged with both sleeves raised high, “I totally made it up!” Hands clasped together, “It makes me more sad when I name them!”

The Titan laughed a little more and shook his head. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his robe, “I can’t really judge. It’d make me sad, too.”

The Titan watched the small creatures munching plants for a bit more. Then he frowned again. “What’s my name?”

Keeper looked confused, floating to the side. “The Titan?”

“No.” The Titan shook his head more, more concerned. His right hand went up to his skull, feeling it. “My name. The Titan is just species. King is a titan. My children were titans. My siblings. I’m… I’m…”

Keeper assumed, “The Boiling Isles?” 

“No!” The Titan said, and for the first time in ages, he looked very worried. He tapped his head, “I had a name. I did. I had one, and … I can’t remember it.”

The Titan looked at Keeper and the Titan was scared. “Why can’t I remember my name?”

Keeper swallowed very hard. Hands slid up the opposite sleeves, like hugging himself. “I … I don’t know. I told you, I couldn’t save all of you. I had to make you a new body.”

And even if there was no physical ailment, the Titan suddenly felt like he was having trouble breathing. “I’m… I’m…”

He scrunched his eyes shut and tried to focus on the back recesses of his mind, but his memory was no help at all. 

He had a name!

He knew he had a name, he did!

But what… what was it?

Keeper rushed the Titan back to his room before anything worse could happen. 

“It’s, it’s okay!” Keeper tried to reassure him. “It’s, it's just a name, right? You can choose a new name! Any name you want!”

And that wasn’t the point, and it didn’t help.

They nearly lost the Titan again. 

……

The Titan felt listless for a while. 

Sounds stupid, right?

The Titan used to be bigger than a mountain range, practically a walking god - and now he had a panic attack and almost died because he couldn’t remember his name.

And even when he tried to think about other things in the past, he couldn’t remember what all he’d forgotten! He lived millennia! And then he was half dead for millennia!

If he forgot something as basic as his own name, what else had he forgotten? What else was lost?

If Keeper only managed to save ‘part’ of the Titan’s life… how little of his memory was left?

“Papa.”

“Dad.”

He remembered his kids calling him that. He remembered their names. 

And then he got scared again because what if he didn’t? What if he didn’t remember one of his children? 

What if he forgot many ?

And the Titan was okay with dying and moving on, and he was okay with being diminished, and he’d be okay if he only lived a half life in this body. Perhaps he’d be something of a grimwalker like Hunter.

But he wasn’t okay with forgetting his kids. He might have cried a little. 

Keeper fussed with his hands and his sleeves. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. Should I have said something sooner?”

The Titan sighed heavily. His fingers tapped at the floating star that let him see life on the Boiling Isles. “No… You were right before… Waiting on the emotional talks till I was better… I’m sorry. I should have handled this better.”

Keeper played with some of the magic lines in the room. “Don’t be. You lost your children, your siblings, your life, and now some of your memory. Really, you being upset is overdue.”

The Titan sighed again. Looking in on King’s comedy hour with Luz usually made him happy. Not so much today.

He leaned back on the bed and just looked up at the stars. “You never told them I was alive, did you?”

Keeper slowly shook his head. He was fidgeting again. “No… I… I figured that…”

The Titan didn’t need him to finish the sentence. He already knew, “You didn’t want to show up months after my death to say, ‘hey, he’s alive,’ only for this procedure to fail… and then have to tell them I died again. They’d have to grieve me twice.”

Keeper grit his teeth and made a very tiny noise: something unpleasant, but not quite a whimper. “I’m not good with death. Sorry.”

The somber Titan nodded. “It was the right thing… King knew I was dead before the Day of Unity. I wouldn’t want him to suffer more.”

Keeper floated a bit closer, “B-but on the bright side, your body did hold up! Sure, it… wasn’t GREAT… you could have died from the disconnection… but you didn’t!”

Keeper floated directly above the Titan so they could make eye contact. “So I’m sure if we keep up with this program, get your life all nice and settled in this body, then you can go back home! And you can tell King yourself, and hold him yourself, and have a real life again! Won’t that be great?”

The Titan sighed and turned his head. He mumbled, “Yes… it would…”

Keeper flustered and fussed around the room a bit more. He had already tried making the place more like the so-called Demon Realm - a bit of home for the Titan - but there was only so much he could do. Most of that planet was just wet. 

Keeper thought that maybe it was a good time for something else. So he said, “I’m going to take your advice!”

The Titan frowned and looked over at him. “What advice would that be?”

Keeper made a tiny illusion of another certain child. “The Collector… He’s alone, like me, and … maybe I can help him… maybe he can help me… It’s… been nice talking to someone for real, with you… I’m not like the other Archivists, and neither is he…”

Keeper let the illusion fade, and tried to make a real smile. “I can’t make a friend without taking a risk. Right?”  

The Titan chuckled softly. “Maybe he could help you with those names…”

Keeper groaned playfully and hugged his sleeves around himself. “Nooo. It hurts too much…”

The Titan ended up laughing again.

……

The Titan woke up from sleep to find a very small bug flying above his face. 

That was new. The Titan had never seen bugs in his personal healing chamber.

The bug spoke up, somehow loud enough to be heard, “You’re smaller than I remember…”

The Titan had to squint a bit, but the energy was vaguely familiar. It was the young Collector, albeit quite minuscule. 

So the Titan laughed a little. “I could say the same for you.”

The little Collector scoffed, “Ha! I’ve been growing! I’m a, a whole two fingers taller!”

But then the bug-sized Collector snapped his fingers, and he grew to a proportional child-size instead. The Collector was holding Francois under one arm, close to his body like a security blanket.

The Titan started sitting up in bed and looked around. Keeper was also there, but looking slightly flustered as Keeper often did. “We were trying not to wake you. I guess your senses are getting better, too.”

The Titan nodded, and he felt a strange urge to smile. “How much did I miss?”

Collector pumped his arms in excitement, “So much! There was Belos, and King, and the Owl House, Belos again, Luz died, undied, King gave me Francois, I tried to fix the rain…”

Keeper was adjusting some of the magic and spoke over his shoulder, “A few days, in Demon time! You weren’t asleep that long.”

The Titan chuckled softly. “Thank you, Keeper.”

The Collector touched a finger to his lips, “Ohhh… you meant that.”

The Titan smiled and nodded. “I appreciate your enthusiasm. I have certainly missed a lot.”

Keeper finished his adjustments to the ambient magic and then brushed off his hands. “I’ve been trying to show him the works around here. After your last mishap, your body’s been showing a significant improvement. I think your life force has just about settled in!”

The Titan scratched softly at his beard. “Sounds like good news to me…” 

Keeper kept up his medical adjustments anyway. No reason to get sloppy at the finish line!

The Titan looked at the Collector again. They both looked somber for a moment, and then both tried to apologize at the same time. “I wanted-” “I’m sorry!”

The Titan was confused. “Why are you sorry?”

Collector held Francois in both arms, so he had something to hold and cuddle. “About before… way back… when everything bad happened to your family…”

The Titan slowly shook his head. “You didn’t hurt them.”

Collector was staring downwards. “But you lost them because of me… You lost your whole family… My brothers used me to distract you and I wasn’t smart enough to realize it…”

The Titan breathed slowly, and his heart was beating faster despite it.

Keeper interrupted, “Collector, please. You’re upsetting him. I thought we agreed to wait.”

The Titan held up a hand, “No.” He tried to keep his voice calm, and his heart with it. “It’s okay.” He faced the Collector again, “Because I’ve wanted to say sorry for a very long time.”

The Titan felt an urge to hug the star child, but held back. This wasn’t one of his own kids. His hands rested on his knees. “I would be lying… if I said your arrival didn’t bring me great grief… but you are not your brothers. And I acted in anger, and nearly ruined both our lives. I am still sorry for sealing you away.”

Collector sniffled once, still holding Francois tight. “I’m trying to be smarter now… but sometimes it’s hard… Luz said-”

“People are complex,” the Titan remembered. He gave the Collector a little smile. “And sometimes they just need a little kindness and forgiveness.”

Collector sniffled again, floated a fraction closer. “You heard that?”

The Titan nodded. “Some things… not everything… and apparently my memory is not what it used to be… Still… whatever happened all those years ago… I’m still sorry for the suffering I put you through.”

Collector glanced over at Keeper as if looking for encouragement. Keeper motioned towards him a little, no real words. 

Collector kept his gaze down. He murmured, “I tried to forgive Belos, but it didn’t work. But he never said sorry either. And… and I am sorry, for all the baby titans…” He hugged tight to Francois, “I loved them. Honest. They were the cutest… I never would have let the Archivists hurt them, if I knew…”

The Titan carefully held out his three-clawed hand. “Well, then… here’s to us being better than Belos. I forgive you. And I hope one day you’ll forgive me.”

Collector sniffled once more. He looked again to Keeper, but the Keeper put his hands up. “It’s your choice. Not mine.”

Collector turned to the Titan, uncertainty still on his half gold, half blue face. “Can I still be friends with King?”

The Titan smiled even bigger. “I would love for you to be friends with King. He’s going to need a lot of good friends.”

The Collector didn’t shake his hand. No, the little kid jumped to hug him instead!

Keeper and the Titan smiled, and the Titan carefully hugged the child back.

The Titan gave Keeper a subtle thumbs up as well.

The Collector held on for a long while. Then he sniffled and stepped back to rub his nose, trying to find his cheer again. “King is going to be so excited about this! He’s gonna be climbing you for days!”

The Titan laughed. “I’ve seen him with Eda and Luz. I’m sure I don’t need to worry too much… Not like when I was …”

The Titan didn’t finish his sentence. He remembered how the Collector first appeared in that room, like a bug. The Titan did remember how big he was when he was alive, when he could carry all of his children with ease. 

The Titan frowned a moment as he eyed up the Collector, the Keeper, the bed under the Titan, and the chamber now designed to look like his watery home. 

The Demon Realm didn’t have beds sized for an adult titan. He had assumed, having woken up in a bed, that the bed was witch-sized. “Keeper… how tall am I right now?”

Several numbers popped up in the air around the Keeper and started changing rapidly. The Keeper held up a hand as he tried to run conversions again. “Uh… smaller than you were?”

The Titan remained uncertain. “Yes… when you mentioned I was diminished, that you could only save a small part, I had assumed we were the size of witches and biped demons…”

The Collector started giggling, holding Francois to his stomach. “No way!! You're like a thousand thousand million Kings!”

The Titan couldn’t tell if that was exaggeration or even accurate, and he couldn’t do mental math like that either. 

Keeper was taking it more seriously. But his math sucked. He made a small illusion of the Boiling Isles, and then a copy of that illusion right beside it. He shrunk the second only a little. “I want to say you’re somewhere between 2/3rds and 3/4ths of your previous size, how ever big that is in your measurements.”

The Titan blinked several times in a row. “I … would not exactly … call that diminished…”

Keeper flustered easily and chased away the illusions. “I told you this isn’t my native language! I could only save a small part of your life! I had to make up the difference!”

The Titan touched his own chest for a moment and focused on that, the magic in his own heart. If he actually focused… he honestly couldn’t tell how much weaker he was anymore. He thought he was tiny!

And for some reason, the Titan found it hilarious and started chuckling. “You’ve spent all this time… trying to make me as big as I was?”

Keeper grimaced and shrugged in a painful way. “Y-yes? Did, did you … not want your real body??”

Trying to rebuild a magical living mountain range was, again, much harder than rebuilding a human.

Hell, he could make a mountain fast, if it wasn’t supposed to be magic and alive! Therein lied the complexity.

The Titan rubbed at his eyes. It was too amusing. “You didn’t have to do so much for me, Keeper. I would have accepted life as a simple biped demon.”

Keeper turned around in place several times, groaning and aggrieved, twisted up in his robe. “Well, you could have told me that two years ago!”

The Titan laughed even more. 

The Collector tilted his head and his hat almost fell off. “I apparently missed a lot.”

Chapter Text

So the Titan was titan-sized again. 

Not actually a problem! If bad things happened again, he was glad to know he’d be the biggest force on the planet. 

He wasn’t actually worried about being too big. Magic to shrink or otherwise alter appearance wasn’t that complicated. The Titan could do greater magic in his sleep (or, you know, dead . You’re welcome, Luz). 

And Keeper did want him to work on some magic before the Titan went home. If something went wrong, Keeper wanted to be close to help stabilize his body.

Dad that he was, the Titan had a little grin and looked over at the Collector. “Hey there, little buddy… how would you like to play a few games?”

The Collector might have smiled so wide, the kid needed to stretch his face.

It was good practice for the Titan to move his new body, too. 

When they played with a tower of blocks, they could do all sorts of things. They could make themselves very big, or very little - and that was just to move things by hand!

When it came to magic? A bit of telekinesis could go far! So can blasting a block away with fire or wind. The ice glyph was all about halting momentum, and he could freeze other blocks in place while hitting another out from under them!

When their tower was precariously balanced and awkwardly swaying, it turned into a very different game!

The Titan disappeared. 

The Collector got confused and started calling out for him. When the Titan was especially small, he called back, then ran elsewhere. They started playing hide and seek in their ramshackle tower of blocks.

Collector kept giggling and calling for him. Papa called back then rushed to a different part of the tower.

Invisibility, portaling, tracking spells and remote viewing… all sorts of magical shenanigans were going on. 

The Titan could flap his wings, fly behind one block or another, or stick to the sides like a lizard. A quick spell could muffle his wing beats, silent like an owl, but he was breathing a bit more from all the running around. He hadn’t played so much in ages!

Yet eventually all that running and moving upset the tower of blocks, and they had to jump away before the blocks fell on them.

The Titan instinctively moved to cover the kid, wings like shields around them. Of course, the Collector was vastly more durable than a titan of King’s size. So protecting the Collector like that was an unnecessary gesture. 

But the Collector still thought it was nice that someone would look out for him.

The Titan and the Collector had a good giggle about that, and Papa Titan gave him an affectionate hug and rub of the hat.

His new body was holding up fine. But with a wink and a nudge, Papa Titan thought they should play a few more games “ just in case .” Tag or marbles might be good! 

The Collector had already been taught about his previous games being too intense for mortals, so he was a bit worried he’d hurt Papa Titan playing like that. It ended up being good practice for the both of them, cause the Collector could practice restraint more as well.

So the Titan still had his glyphs. He could still make circles. Playing like that did show some of the cracks though. His memories were… still incomplete. 

The Titan could do a lot of magic by instinct or concentration, but sometimes he couldn’t remember how a glyph combo worked or why. With some irony, the Titan wondered if Luz could teach him things.

Keeper wasn’t sure if the memories would come back to him eventually, or if they’d stay lost. Keeper repeated what he had said before about “only being able to save a part.” 

But it really was nice, being able to do magic again… playing with a kid again… The Titan was grateful for any extra time.

And when the Titan heard that there was going to be a big birthday celebration for Luz, he got a bit excited! (Maybe too excited. Keeper went into anxious doctor mode again.)

Either way, King considered her his sister. Everyone on the Boiling Isles were sort of like the Titan’s children, too, and it wasn’t a big stretch for him to see Luz as another daughter.

And he knew just what present to give her…

……

So there he was, Papa Titan, a party crasher - ancient magical megafauna and precursor to all life on the Isles - currently shrunk down for everyone’s convenience.

Still somewhere over two meters tall. He’d probably be the biggest person at the party, if not for the Bat Queen. It was nice to see her.

The people who’d run over to help had quickly backed off now that they could see him. Someone even fainted at the sight of a dead god rising.

But looking around the crowd again, Papa Titan could count two battle ready abominations and at least eight palismen in staff form - with their witch partners ready to duel. Eda and Lilith were very feathery. Even the Bat Queen was in momma beast mode, eyes all aglow and oily hair writhing like serpents.

Someone said the words, “ Titan Trapper ,” and hushed whispers followed.

Papa Titan showed them his palms, “Whoa whoa. No need for that. Not a Trapper. Hello again, Luz! King, BQ, missed you two. Eda! Big fan.” 

The crowd relaxed little.

He scratched at his beard for a moment, “I was going to slip in quietly at the end of the party, but that’s really not an option now. I, uh, suppose you weren’t … bready for me? Or, wait, no. I wasn’t bready for that loop. I fell.”

The Titan laughed at his own attempt at a joke and shrugged slowly. “Sorry? I panicked. I guess I… knead to work on my flying a bit more…”

He gestured like he was kneading bread, just in case some people missed the pun.

Luz and the Collector giggled first. They glanced at each other and King, then pointed at Papa Titan, “Bread puns!”

King was holding very still and his hands were clasped tight in front of his chest. His eyes were very wide, his horns angled backwards.

Hooty’s head had somehow wormed its way very close to Papa Titan. He squealed in his annoying voice, “You look familiar, Hoot. Reeeeaally familiar.”

Papa Titan scratched under Hooty’s jaw once. “I get that a lot. I just saw some flies to your right. You want to get those?”

Hooty squeaked, “WOULD I?!”

The bird tube flung itself headlong in the other direction.

At least two different people swore, “ Oh, Titan .”

“Oh, me ,” The Titan thumbed at his chest as he joked. Then he showed the inside pockets of his bathrobe and added, “Don't worry, everyone. You can crust me.”

Luz giggled and bent down a bit closer to King. “I think he meant trust, right?”

Someone in the back of the crowd groaned, “He’s here to torture us! It’s a monster!”

Someone else slapped their mouth shut and hid them behind a griffin.

Barcus sneezed and grunted, wagging his tail. [He has an aura of dilf.] Jerbo frowned at him, “You meant dad, right? Right ??”

Eda, Raine and Lilith were less than amused, staves still gripped tight. Raine’s staff had turned into a violin, a bow in the other hand poised to play. Eda’s hook was particularly menacing. They remembered the threat of the Titan Trappers, how they dressed , and how they tried to kill King . They thought they’d seen the last of the Trappers.

What’s easier to believe? The ancient dead are somehow back to life or the Collector just got tricked again? 

Without taking her eyes off the party crasher, Harpy Eda complained, “Collector, buddy, you had better start explaining and explaining very fast.”

The small Collector was a bit confused and off balance. He held tighter to Franocis and started stammering, “W-what’s wrong? It’s, it’s - It’s King’s-”

Luz tried to step forward, “Guys, you don’t have to worry! I think it’s-”

Eda snapped and held her back, “I know what it looks like! But the Titan has five fingers on a hand and he only has three ! Collector??”

Gus already had his amplifier out to scan the Titan. “It’s some kind of visual projection, to be sure. A manifest illusion. This isn’t his real form.”

The exact image was fuzzy and crackly like a broken tv channel. It had difficulty reading the image of a fully grown titan.

The small Collector got in between them. “It’s King’s dad! It’s Papa! Papa Titan! One of my brothers saved him. He brought the Titan back!”

King had only taken a few steps closer. He held onto the hem of Eda’s red robe, looking for security. He glanced between the Collector, Eda, and Papa Titan. 

Gently Luz held King by the shoulder. “He’s just like how I saw him, on the day we beat Belos.”

Well, minus the Hooty eye, but that would cause a whole slew of other questions and the Titan didn’t want to go into that right now.

Raine kept ready to flick a string. They added in, “You’ll have to forgive our suspicion, but if you’re supposed to be him, what are we standing on?”

Papa Titan glanced downwards. “While I’d like to make a joke about shoes, I should probably say ‘my last body’ so you don’t all start shooting… Good eye, Eda, Gus. Gold stars.”

Papa Titan held up his right hand, and as he did so a dark circle formed around his wrist. 

As he turned his hand back and forth, his hand showed the three fingers, then the five fingers, then back to three. 

“I didn’t want to seem too scary to Luz when I saved her. But I did want to look familiar to her… I guess it doesn’t work for the rest of you. Sorry.”

Papa Titan rubbed over the blackness of his right eye socket and then a new golden eye became visible. 

Perks of a new body! He had two golden eyes again. 

Papa Titan casually gestured toward the Collector and explained, “It’s what he said. I’ve spent the last three years being rebuilt in another realm’s hospital, and more years than I can count half-dead and stuck in the In Between Realm. An ex-Archivist caught the last bit of my life as it left Luz.”

Papa placed his hands together. It was almost like prayer. “And I can tell you the whole story and it’s a really long one, but I would just really really really like to hug my son for one moment. I’ve been waiting thousands of years.” The Titan looked at King and couldn’t look away. “He was just an egg… I’m trying to be a cool dad right now, but I’m already getting a bit emotional. I’m gonna cry.” Papa Titan sniffled and started fanning at his face, “Luz, can you please use one of the old glyphs in your pocket? They’ll work again now that I’m back. Okay?”

Some things are just old habit. Luz always carried a few of her old glyphs in her pocket, even long after Belos’ defeat. “Oh yeah! I can do that, no sweat!”

A Trapper can’t fake that.

She got out a light glyph from a back pocket. But even before she tapped it, King was running forward. Eda yelled, “King, wait!” Lilith yelled, “King!” 

“ME!” Hooty screamed and came zipping back to crash into Eda and Lilith.

King scrambled past the others, nearly tripped at one point. Caught himself on four feet, then ran on two again.

Papa Titan carefully took a knee, arms open, and King threw himself at the big, bushy-bearded titan. 

Papa caught him and just hugged so tight. Eyes were not misty: Papa and King skipped straight to full bodied crying. Papa Titan’s tail was wagging like crazy, sweeping all over at the ground every which way.

In Luz’s hand, Papa Titan’s old light spell was extra sparkly tonight.

As Eda and Lilith fumbled to get free from Hooty’s coils, Hooty sang, “This is my ~new~ favorite day…”

……

Porta-Hooty was put on time out.

Things calmed down after that, at least to some extent. It was still a party and people were still freaking out about the Titan’s return. To some extent, people were even celebrating his return. 

But staves were put away. Sisters were less feathery. No more attack circles - just the fun ones like bardic music, floaty powers, and illusionist light shows. 

Raine and the artists formerly known as BATs provided a lot of that. But as always Gus was the master of illusions. His clones were trying to get people snacking and dancing again, determined to lighten the mood as fast as possible.

A lot of people still wanted this to be the Titan’s story hour, but Papa Titan urged them to get back to the party. He took a seat at one of the tables. “I really didn’t mean to interrupt. Wanted to give Luz a present on her big day, I just intended to show up later. My plans just… went a rye …”

King giggled more at that. Darius squeezed the space between his eyes and his purple hair bubbled. “I’m being punished for something. Aren’t I?”

An amused Alador was enjoying a plate full of party food. “You mean pun-ished, don’t you?”

Darius stood straight up, body tight. He stabbed a finger towards Alador, “Do not start that!!”

One of the BATs played a rimshot on a summoned drum.

The Titan remembered something and waved, “Oh! Alador! Blight! Love the work you’re doing with the Healing Coven. Ask me later about pitching in. I’ve, uh, got a bit more energy than them. We can get those brands off faster.”

Alador smirked like a shit-eating monster. Who’s the hack now? Darius groaned more.

Grinning Eberwolf had his scroll out and was trying to look up more puns.

Willow rubbed at her wet eyes. “It’s just so beautiful.”

Hunter offered her a handkerchief from one of his many pockets. 

The palismen chirped, tweeted, rumbled and clicked their way through conversations of their own. Their eyes were glowing and flashing, pulsing like the strobe lights of a rave. Even the Bat Queen had a lot of strange emotions to talk about with her tiny peers.

King sat on Papa Titan’s leg, and Papa Titan had one arm protectively around his son’s back. Papa Titan kept asking if King wanted down, to go talk with someone else, but King held on even tighter. “Not yet.”

King’s tail had rarely wagged so much.

The Collector and Papa Titan had to explain the story more than once that night. The shadow war of the Archivists against the titans, the invisible threat and all the disappearances… so many titans vanishing without reason or trace… the Titan Trappers confusing and slaying young titans, misdirection that left bigger titans vulnerable, and all the death that built up to an act of desperation… Papa Titan trying to protect his people by sealing away the greatest threat…

…but even that was an Archivist trick… The Archivists used the Collector as a distraction and a scapegoat, and the Titan fell for it…

The grief of it was still clear on Papa Titan’s face. He held King just a little tighter. “I hid King’s egg behind enough wards to conceal him, and left behind guardians that would protect and take care of him… But titans live very long lives, and my enchantments were fading sooner than I expected.”

King looked between his adoptive mother and his biological father. He realized, “And that’s when Eda found me.”

Papa Titan had a little smile. “Yeah… I couldn’t do much from the In Between Realm,” the Titan gestured towards Eda, “But you needed some place safe, and King needed someone else to raise him. So,” the Titan smiled more, “I hedged a bet that a wild witch who loved the Isles’ magic so much, would be a great mom for the last titan. And I let you inside.”

Eda grunted stiffly, still very suspicious about all these circumstances. She was ready to go Harpy again at a moment’s notice.

Lilith was thinking back to that one fateful day, “I wondered why it didn’t exist on any maps. It couldn’t be found.” Lilith turned to her sister, “Didn’t you say it appeared out of the mists?”

Eda pretended to be more interested in her hook, “Yeah, yeah, it was very mysterious, showed up when I needed it, all that stuff.”

“ Mist-erious ,” Papa Titan chuckled softly and rubbed at King’s back. “Only another titan could find it… or someone with their favor.” 

King recalled something else. “It was always there when I looked for it…”

Papa Titan nodded. But then he winced when he remembered Jean-Luc had still fought to protect King. “Sorry about the guardian, Eda. I couldn’t change him from the other realm…”

A lot of people hadn’t even heard of the In Between Realm, much less that the Titan was stuck there - or that people could be rescued from it.

Papa Titan had to look away when they asked about that part. “My circumstances were… very specific… Keeper got very lucky when he saved me…”

King’s little hand gripped tighter at the Bad Coven shirt. “But… you don’t have to go back there, right? You’re going to stay? Right?”

Papa Titan gave him the biggest smile he could. “For more years than we can even count…”

King’s eyes were still looking at him so wide and worried, afraid he might vanish as quickly as he arrived.

Papa Titan leaned closer. “Hey, King?”

King looked even more timid. “Yes?”

Papa Titan whispered, “I loaf you…”

King buried his face against Papa Titan’s chest and whined like a tiny animal.

……

As the party continued, Eda slipped into the role of party chaperone. Arms were crossed. Eyes were watchful and alert. Owlbert cooed on her shoulder. 

Lilith walked over with two drinks, and one of them was apple blood. “Snail for your thoughts?”

Eda glowered. “Do I look that cheap to you?” Eda took the apple blood. “Make it two snails.”

Lilith chuckled once, then sipped her own drink. 

Eda grumbled to herself. She turned her skepticism on her sister. “Shouldn’t you be offering him tea, your praises, some dark deeds committed in his name?”

Lilith smirked over the edge of her drink. “Steve connected me with a very good therapist… I’ll wait at least three days before offering him any dark deeds. Thank you very much.”

Eda sighed in grumpy protest. She downed more apple blood, eyes squinting and suspicious. She whispered, “I don’t like this, Lilli… It’s too … convenient.”

Lilith nudged into her sister once, “Then it’s good King has a mom well-versed in the ways of con men and scam artists.”

Grumpy Eda elbowed her sister back. She whispered faster, “This is not about me. Don’t make this about me. This is about King!”

“Yes, it is,” Lilith calmly agreed. “Luz will be opening her presents soon. I’ll double check the party itinerary with Camila. Try not to brood too much. For King’s sake.”

Eda grumbled as her sister walked away. She muttered, “I am not being broody.”

Owlbert hooted several times. Eda pointed aggressively at the owl, “Don't you take her side!”

Owlbert hooted again. 

Eda crossed her arms and huffed, “I’m surrounded by traitors.”

……

The party proceeded with all the creepy (and mildly terrifying) cultural mashups that Luz was used to. She wore the stitched-up, frankenstein dress right over her other clothes, webs and all. She giggled, “Where did you get all these teeth from?”

They looked much bigger than human teeth, and Camila wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. 

Camila might have blocked out the answer for her mental health.

Poor Camila. Great mother. Gritting her teeth and being supportive even as the spiders crawled out of the Azura-shaped birthday cake. Oh the pain.

The Snaggleback tried to run away while no one was looking, but Hooty dragged him back. They needed him for the ‘pain-yata.’

Okay, Camila had to say something about the pain-yata. Her internal vet didn’t want to be the party’s actual, external vet as well.

The Snaggleback was so grateful. 

The dancing, however, was much safer. Luz had a great dance with Amity and it was like dancing for Grom all over again - but with less terror.

No one could tell if Luz and Amity choreographed it. Luz didn’t even know the party was going to happen, but who doesn’t dance with their partner on the sly? 

It all just flowed, like a couple who were so used to finishing the other’s thoughts. 

For just a bit of time, the two had eyes only for the other.

Amity performed that one glamorous twirl: tracing a circle on the ground with her boots. Luz provided the root, the support.

They were still dancing as an abomination rose, then it gave them an extra lift, throwing them up high. 

Luz laughed and used a few old glyphs to fill the air with sparkling snow. The old glyphs worked again!

People were clapping before they even landed. Some of them even cheered, others whistling in congratulations. Palismen were waving their limbs and flashing their eyes.

King almost fell off of Papa Titan’s lap because he was so eager to clap for his sister. Luz meant so much to King. Thankfully, Papa had carried a lot of kids in his time. He didn’t drop King, just chuckled a little. King looked back and forth between his father and Luz, fighting some internal debate. 

(Papa Titan might have missed the slight insecurity on King’s face then.)

One of the tables was adorned with presents for the birthday girl. Luz didn’t want to be greedy, but they had an itinerary planned and a lot of people wanted to see her reaction! The crowd encouraged Luz to start opening.

Willow put together a magical photo album of Luz’s life on the Isles. It was chock full of memories from her friends and associates, cataloging her earlier life and all the shenanigans she got up to. It was a huge walk down memory lane.

Gus had fashioned a special kind of concealment stone for her. Tap it once for a quick costume change to Azura’s outfit! Tap again to change back.

Or, if Luz wanted to have more fun with it, she could trace around the edge instead. That extended the transformation sequence and added a whole lot of ribbons and lights to the change - befitting a magical girl like Luz!

Gus and Hunter both went the anime route for her. Hunter made her a set of action figures from the different anime she liked, hand carved and painted so they all matched. Of course he already made one of Azura as well, but that was a gift in a previous year!

Amity used those library connections to get some ancient manuscripts, some of them courtesy of the echo mice. They were records from the early years of history, when witches were still new to the Isles and using glyph magic. 

The language was old and stilted, sometimes unintelligible, but the pages displayed a number of other glyph combos. Amity thought it might be entertaining in a hypothetical way, or at least relevant to Luz’s interests. But since the Titan was right there and alive again , those texts might have practical use after all!

Eda sidled up close to give Luz her present. It was a very different kind of book. “In here you’ll find all of my favorite and most useful potion recipes.” Half covering her mouth, Eda whispered to Luz, “Some of them naughty potions for adult mischief and chaotic shenanigans. Don’t tell your mother.”

Camila was taking photos for her own record, “I heard that.~”

Teasing, Eda clicked her tongue and snapped her fingers, “Damn. Good ears.”

Eda and Camila both shot each other a knowing look, and Camila photographed the playfulness on Eda’s face. Luz was smiling in the same frame.

King deigned to get down then, cause he was eager to share his own present. Papa Titan couldn’t disappear that fast, could he? King’s tail remained just as waggy, hands giddy for Luz to see his present. 

King wrote her a new book. Writing with her made him happy, but this work was all his. “I included lots of gushy fantasy stuff. I thought you’d like that.”

Luz laughed and hugged him when she realized it was Luzura fan fiction, and then she kissed him on the head, too. 

King’s tail wagged even faster. But there were a lot of other presents to open, and Lilith was trying to keep to schedule.

So King went back to sit with Papa Titan right after. Still no disappearances. 

Papa Titan hugged King to his side and whispered down to him, “I know it's customary to give the birthday girl a present, but the Collector and I made another stop before we got here. So when you’re ready, I have something for you, too.”

King frowned and looked up at him. “Another stop? Another stop where?”

“The Human Realm,” the Titan explained casually. Then he reached back into the thick fluff of his tail, and pulled out a box like Eda would pull something from her hair. 

He handed the box to King, then second guessed himself. “Now, uh, I haven’t seen your whole life, and I don’t remember everything either, so if you don’t like it, it’s okay. It’s just something small. I can do better. But, but I know you liked it when you were younger and Wrath broke it, so…”

King opened the box, eyes blinking as he realized what was inside. Hesitant and almost scared, King lifted up a paper crown from ‘Burger Queen.’

Papa Titan was nervously glancing aside. “I, uh, put some charms on it. So it’s tougher. Shouldn’t break. But, but again, it’s okay if you don’t like it. It’s probably stupid. You’re older now. You probably won’t like it anymore.”

King tried to hug Papa Titan as hard as he possibly could.

Papa Titan was happy to hug him back, and soon they were both sniffling and misty eyed again.

And it was such a small thing. Wouldn’t have mattered to most anyone else. Just a little paper crown, but it meant something to King.

A watchful Eda saw the whole thing in the corner of her eye, and she relaxed just a little.

From the center of the party, Luz raised her voice again, “Thank you, everyone! This has been the best surprise party I’ve ever had! And thanks for all the presents, and the surprises .” She winked at Papa Titan and King, and the two titans giggled. She said, “A lot of good surprises…”

Papa Titan gave her a thumbs up. Then Papa Titan realized, “Oh! I forgot the other gifts!”

He gave another side hug to King, then the Titan walked closer to Luz. “Whole reason I showed up today and I nearly forgot them.”

Luz laughed once and scratched at the back of her neck. “Oh, that’s no problem! Really.” Luz shrugged once, “You already saved my life and helped us save everyone on the Boiling Isles. I don’t really need more than that.”

The Titan shook his head with a smile. “‘Need’ doesn’t come into it. It’s your birthday. But I knew you were a good witch then, and you still are. So I want to give you something that only I can give.”

Papa Titan lifted a finger up, but stopped himself from casting. Instead he looked towards Eda for permission. “Um, this is going to be a big spell. And I completely understand if you still don’t trust me and want to study this first.”

Eda simply waved it off, “Nah, it’s good.”

Papa Titan frowned, unsure about what changed in the last few minutes. “…Are you sure? Cause if you want, I can give you your gift first. Might alleviate some of your fears.”

Eda smiled and scoffed, “Are you kidding? It’s Luz’s day, not mine.” She bumped hips with her apprentice. “I don’t need anything.”

A playful Luz poked back at her, “I’m pretty sure you’ve earned a little something after everything else.”

Papa Titan laughed. He shook his head, “I’m with Luz on this one. You deserve something, too. Just a matter of who’s first…”

Papa Titan drew a large circle in front of him, then put his right hand through it. His glyphs started shining along his forearm and hand. “So, without further ado… Luz the human, would you like a second heart?”

Weird faces followed. Small insects were chirping. 

Uncertain, Luz blankly said, “What.”

The Titan blinked a few times. With his left hand, he patted at his chest. “You know. Witches and demons, they have a second heart… It's a heart of magic. It’s how they do magic.”

Eda stepped a bit to one side, “You mean the bile sac connected to the heart?”

Papa Titan looked up to the sky in silent grief. “Okay. I know I’ve forgotten things, but. Please tell me you haven't been calling it a bile sac.”

Lilith adjusted her glasses, cleared her throat. “Well, medically speaking, that organ has more similarities to-”

“Okay, the bile sac,” Papa Titan groaned and his left hand rubbed at his eyes. Then he shook it off. His right hand was still outstretched and enchanted and he tried to start over. “Luz the human, student of the Demon Realm, would you like a … magical bile sac … to draw your magic in the air?”

The Titan looked like it physically hurt him to call it that.

Luz held her hands together, steepling her index fingers. She inhaled sharply through her nose, thinking very hard. “Hng.”

Everyone else was waiting. So many people were whispering, expressions of surprise, disbelief, or wonder. 

Papa Titan just stood there. He held up his left index finger as an aside, “And just for the record, this is not a test of personality or a commentary on what makes a good witch. You already are a good witch… All magic on these Isles is derived from me. I’m just offering you what others were lucky to be born with.”

A few people started whispering encouragement, congratulations. Some were even clapping, cheering. “Come on!” “You can do it!” “You own that!” “You deserve it!”

Luz looked back and forth between Eda, Amity, King, Stringbean and her mom. They were all trying to be supportive, even Willow, Gus, Hunter and Vee. 

Luz inhaled sharply between her teeth, hands fidgeting as she took a step closer. “So, so I’m definitely a good witch?”

Papa Titan chuckled. “You are definitely a good witch.”

She took another step closer. “And this doesn’t make me weak or ungrateful or anything, if I accept this?”

Stringbean was not offended. No, she turned into her minuscule dragon form and was pushing Luz along! The snake shifter was excited for Luz.

Papa Titan kept smiling. “You’re not weak. Or ungrateful. It’s just a gift - because you were kind to King and Eda, so I want to be kind to you. You’re his big sister.”

Luz jumped forward another step. She quickly brushed off her clothes just in case they were dirty. “This is, uh, one of those things where I have to choose myself, isn’t it?”

Papa Titan nodded and it was getting very hard to stay serious. Luz always was strangely endearing. “Yyy-yup.”

Luz reached towards his hand, then stopped herself halfway. She rushed to say, “But also for the record: I really love Stringbean and her magic and glyph magic, and I want to keep using them and learning lots about them, both yours and King’s, cause I love reading and learning, experimenting and coming up with combos, but it would also be so cool if I could make circles, too!”

Papa Titan gave her a big grin. His tail was wagging. “Is that a yes?”

Luz grabbed his hand and shook it several times. “Yes! Yes please, yes, that would be so cool!”

The dark circle spun faster around his wrist, and as it did so a golden sphere appeared around Luz. It was etched with the same glyph language as when he shared his life with her. 

But this was just a spell - a complicated, powerful spell that no witch could perform - but still just a spell and not a transfer of life, so it didn’t make her look like a titan hybrid again.

The crackling black circle disappeared first, and then the golden sphere dissipated as well.

For a moment, it didn’t seem like anything had changed at all. Luz reached up to her ears, but they were still round. Then she put her hand over her heart and tried to see if that felt any different, but how many people listen to their own heartbeat?

Stringbean returned to cuddling excitedly around Luz’s arm and tugging her hand out, shaking her wrist. Purple sparks were bouncing off of Liz’s fingertips. 

Stringbean even squeaked a few times and Luz started laughing as she realized those sparks were her own! That was her magic, not Stringbean’s! More people were clapping and yelling for her to try it out!

Papa Titan looked over to Eda and motioned towards Luz. He said, “It only seems right that you help her with her first circle.”

Eda had a tiny smirk again and she stepped close again. “Technically I already did when we fought Belos. How about it, kiddo? Do you remember what I said?”

Grinning wildly, Luz pointed her finger out into the air and Eda held Luz’s wrist to support her. Luz remembered the words, “Concentrate! I have to think of what I want! And then…”

Luz drew a purple circle in the air - purple like the color when she cast magic with Stringbean.

It shot a glowing light up into the sky, and then it burst open like a firework. Tiny lights spread out to spell a sentence above their heads. 

‘I LOVE THE OWL HOUSE.’

Chapter Text

Luz was having far too much fun! Fireworks here, sparklers there, a little bit of snow…

A lot of her friends were getting closer to her, wanting to celebrate even more. Illusion? Plant? Abomination? What magic would she try next?? The palismen were dancing around their feet and the bards struck up another song. Raine had the band playing a merry little jig with their violin! 

King didn’t just run towards Luz, he jumped on her back cause he wanted to wave her arm himself! Oof, he was getting heavier! But Luz hardly felt like complaining about anything right now.

King’s horns had gotten bigger with age, so the new ‘Burger Queen’ crown couldn’t sit so easily in between his horns anymore. He just had to wear it around his left horn instead, slightly off-center.

All around them, the party continued with new conversation and celebration. The older witches were intrigued by all these happenings and revelations. The Titan’s return! Humans getting bile sacs! The promise of finally undoing all those brands and who knows what else! They were looking at a magical renaissance to be sure! 

Papa Titan wasn’t the only adult chuckling at all the children’s glee. Eda and the Titan looked at each other for a moment, sharing a small, knowing smirk between them. King’s two parents both understood the sentiment without saying it out loud: ‘Let the kids enjoy themselves.’

Sure, Luz got a lot of great gifts, but when an old god shows up to give you a birthday present, it has a tendency to … outshine…

(In Luz’s case, the shine was quite literal.)

King dropped back down to his own feet even as more people were trying to congratulate Luz, or to encourage her to try something else. 

Papa Titan raised a hand to his mouth and shouted over a small piece of advice, “Start with the four glyphs you know and work outwards from those!”

With her left hand, Luz counted them up on her fingers, “Light, ice, plant, fire?” 

She made a quick circle with her right and reached under her vest, only to pull out a bouquet of roses for Amity.

Papa clapped to cheer her on, “You got it!”

Nodding and closing his eyes, King leaned against Luz’s leg and he joked, “Yeah, fire. Nothing ever goes wrong with fire!”

Gus hummed and examined the new roses with his amplifier, using it like a magnifying glass. “How about the illusion of fire? Might be a bit safer - more flash, less substance.”

A blushing Amity held the flowers away from Gus and teased him, “You just want to convert her to your side.”

Gus dramatically grabbed at his chest, “I can’t help it if illusions make everything better! She’ll want to try them out soon enough!”

Willow had her camera out and snapped another photo, “But it is true that you have a tendency to get carried away…”

“I do not!” Luz was even then spinning a circle to conjure a fireball - a big orange sphere which was quickly getting too large in front of her. Embers were jumping off.

Papa Titan doused it with a magic snowball and Eda playfully sighed. Camila had to shut her eyes.

Luz attempted to smile through her embarrassment and rubbed her left arm. She amended her last statement, “…do that too often. I do not do that too often, these days…”

Papa Titan chuckled softly. Camila muttered something in Spanish that made Vee giggle. 

Then the Titan formed another little snowball in his hands and made sure it was soft and round. “Good idea, Gus, but her mind already has practice with real fire through the glyphs. Everything else follows from those four.” Papa Titan tossed the snowball up a few times, making sure it was solid but soft. “King, you should remember that, too!” 

“Weh?” King turned his attention from Luz to Papa and his small head tilted in that puppyish way. 

Papa Titan gently waved at King with the snowball, making his intention clear. “For the three of us, think of writing the glyphs as… what’s that thing witches use… a training wand!” Papa Titan carefully tossed the snowball to King when the youth was ready. “They help you focus your intent until your mind is stronger - when your powers are ready for something more complex.” 

King caught the snowball and blinked several times in confusion. The crown sat more uneasily on King’s head. He didn’t throw the ball back. King said, “Wait… so… I’ll be able to make circles, too?”

“Of course!” Papa reassured him, a big smile in his golden eyes. Then he corrected himself, “…when you’re older that is…” 

The old Titan crouched and pretended he was measuring a child’s height next to him, someone taller than King was now. “The cry - that ‘weh’ - is just the start of your magic, like how an infant witch knows how to cry before they know how to speak… You could call it your first circle if you like, it’s just… unpolished.”

Raine was nearby, inquisitive and calculating. They still had their violin in hand from the last song, but this talk was more interesting. Raine pretended to flick a string, “Like the operation of bardic magic and verbal enchantments: the sound wave is the circle.”

Papa Titan gave them a big thumbs up. “Bingo! Like that!” The Titan momentarily second-guessed himself and looked to Luz and King, “That is how that expression works, right? ‘Bingo’? I don’t remember everything.”

The Collector was floating sideways through the air and cackled to himself, holding his stomach. “Bingo! Haha! Even I know that one!”

Luz returned one thumbs up for another, “Bingo!”

Eda went closer to Papa Titan, ready to be involved again now that it was about King. “So for King, this is all normal? Baby milestones? Normal development? A-Okay?”

Even the Collector didn’t know much about Titan growth cycles. 

Papa Titan stroked his claws down through his beard. “Relatively? Titans live long and go through many changes, biologically and magically… First there’s the cry, then the glyphs, then drawing circles in the air, until eventually…” 

Papa Titan flicked his thumb like he was flipping a coin, and from it a glowing blue ice glyph went flying upwards. The glyph burst into an innocent, sparkling snowfall - beautiful and fading before the snowflakes hit the ground. 

“…you can do magic with will alone.”

A few people actually clapped for the glittering snowflakes, but that felt a bit strange to Papa. He barely did anything. 

He hoped it wasn’t titan worship. He did not want to be a new emperor, a Belos 2.0.

Luz was listening, too, but seeing Eda adjacent to the Titan suddenly jarred her memory. Papa Titan had mentioned having other gifts to give. Luz smacked the sides of her head, “Oh Titan! I forgot!!” 

Luz ran over, Eda tried to back away, but Luz grabbed her by the wrist. “Eda next! Help Eda next!”

Luz pulled Eda close to the Titan again. The old witch resisted only a little, careful not to poke anyone with the hook. “Come on, kiddo! You’re embarrassing me. I don’t need anything - least of all from King’s dad .”

Oh dear. 

What is the Boiling Isles’ stance on backdated child support?

Papa Titan rumbled softly and fiddled with his fingers. “Well, if it makes you feel better, you could think of me as your great-great great-something grandma instead…”

Luz laughed quietly. Eda was looking away, trying to avoid being put on the spot in front of all their party guests. Eda grumbled under her breath, “Grandma, what a big beard you have…”

Papa Titan put a hand on his hip, more feminine in the stance, “Is that any way to talk to your grandma?”

Eda groaned and tried to hide her eyes behind her hook. (It didn’t work.) “Oh, this is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it?”

Papa Titan laughed a little more. “Titans don’t really have a gender… but dad works fine.”

The Collector floated closer and draped himself over the Titan’s shoulder. “I’ve been calling him Papa! Papa Titan! I think he likes that.”

It did actually make his tail wag a few times. “That also works,” the Titan replied, “But Eda, if you’re so insistent about going last, I’ll circle back to you. You’ll enjoy your father’s present.”

Eda’s nonchalant demeanor went away very fast. Her hair bristled in an unnatural way and she asked all serious and quiet, “What do you have for my father?”

Papa Titan purposefully turned toward Dell Clawthorne. 

The old Clawthorne patriarch was still sitting at one of the other tables with his wife. The Bat Queen’s three children were with the old pair of witches and so was the Bat Queen herself. The six of them spent a lot of time together these days in the palistrom woods. 

The partygoers were whispering and wondering again. Both of Eda’s parents were sitting a bit more still, anxious, uncertain about what to expect - or hope for. How much can an old god provide? The bat children could feel the tension. The Bat Queen still had strange feelings of her own.

Papa Titan glanced at the Bat Queen for a second and held up a claw, “One moment, BQ. You’re next.”

That only confused people more. People were whispering all manner of theories to themselves.

Papa Titan folded his hands together across his stomach. His wings tucked closer to his core, as if trying to look smaller without actually using magic. An attempt to be humble? Or pleading? “Dell, I know you wanted to let the past stay in the past… but today… a little bit of the past is coming back…” 

There was a quiet chuckling from the crowd. Papa Titan gave a wink at Eda.

The Titan took out one of the Collector’s stars from his pocket. It had writing on one side so he could use it like a note card. “I wanted to say this right, so I wrote it out ahead of time.”

Then Papa cleared his throat and raised his voice, “The Palistrom trees are very dear to me, and so are the palismen themselves… They - like every witch and demon on these Isles - have a bit of my life in them… I like to think that means they’re all my children, too… Dell, it made me very happy that you would dedicate your life to them, even after you were hurt. I thank you for that - and I want to reward you for it, too.”

Dell started to speak up, but Papa held up a hand and hurried to explain, “And you’re probably going to be just like Eda and say you don’t need anything - but I’m hoping that you’ll set a good example for your daughters - and when I say I want to give you a gift, you’ll be gracious enough to accept it.” 

The Titan leaned a smidge forward and pretended to whisper, “Maybe that will get Eda to accept hers as well.”

Papa still spoke loud enough for people to hear him and the crowd chuckled.

Eda feigned her irritation and raised her hook like a rude gesture, “I heard that, grandma!”

The crowd chuckled a little more and so did Dell himself! The old man laughed as he slowly stood up, “I’m a bit too old to argue with a titan. I’ll leave that to my daughter.” 

It made Papa Titan smile and Dell smiled at Eda. 

Using his cane for support, Dell slowly walked around the table and towards the Titan. “If the Titan thinks I deserve something, then I will humbly accept.”

Papa Titan’s tail actually wagged a few times. He held a hand up towards his mouth and pretended to whisper again, “I appreciate that.” 

Eda called over in a sing-song voice, “I ~still~ heard that!~”

It was so nice hearing people laugh and enjoy themselves again.

With the titan’s crackling black energy, Papa Titan began to draw another circle pointed upwards. 

The Titan spoke a little more, “Belos claimed to speak for me for a very long time, what he claimed I wanted or believed… I’m glad I’m here now so I can tell you all … I just like helping people … especially those who’ve helped my family, too…”

Papa Titan kept turning the circle and a second, larger circle appeared above Dell Clawthorne - wide enough to encompass Dell’s whole body. 

The large circle slowly began to drift downwards, spinning ever so slowly. The magic still crackled and sparked with the Titan’s great strength.

Dell felt the intensity of it before anything else. He closed his one good right eye as the energy worked its way around and through him, head to toes. 

Even when the magic reached the ground, Dell looked radiant for a moment more. Glowing.

And when Dell breathed out next, he felt better than he had in decades.

He looked down at his left hand. 

The scars didn’t seem so dark anymore. 

The fingers weren’t so gnarled. 

His wrist didn’t seem to shake anymore either. 

Dell Clawthorne carefully closed and opened his left hand, and it moved with an ease that he thought lost forever.

And there was something else strange with Dell’s vision, and that confused Dell for a moment - until he blinked a few times and actually reached up to his face. 

Two eyes. 

Papa Titan regrew Luz’s whole body from nothing; to heal Dell wasn’t nearly so hard…

And now Dell was looking at the Titan with both eyes in such astonishment and gratitude.

And Papa Titan wanted to feel good about that, but he felt discomfort, too. Papa Titan glanced aside as if suddenly second guessing this whole thing. Embarrassed? Do titans get embarrassed? The crowd was still looking at them. Papa scratched at his fluffy beard, “If I had to choose just one magic though, I think I’d choose healing… I missed being able to help people like this…”

Viney cheered as if it was a personal victory.

The awkward moment faded as quickly as the spell.

Gwendolyn and Lilith were ecstatic, running over to Dell, cheering and shouting in happiness. Apparently it was time for tears.

Dell himself was overcome with laughter and gratitude. His eyes - both eyes - were definitely tearing up. “Thank you, Titan. Thank you.”

Okay. Papa knew how to reply to that. Wings stretching out, hand over his heart, the Titan gave Dell a deep, courteous bow. “Make a few more palismen for us… I’d love to see you carve again.”

When the Titan looked over, Eda was covering her mouth, arms clenched close to her body. She’d been tearing up immediately. Yep, definitely crying time.

Dell opened his ( healed, whole, unharmed ) hands towards Eda. “Come on, witchlet. Let’s all have a hug.”

Eda ran to do just that and the five Clawthornes were laughing and crying in equal measure - five, because King was officially a Clawthorne after all! King was happy for his grandpa. The bat children wanted to get in on it, too!

The Bat Queen was flapping her wings in joy, fanged mouth open in such a gleeful smile.

Eda might need another moment before the next part.

So it would probably be good for the Titan to help the grand palisman now instead of the witch.

Papa Titan waved at the Bat Queen. “Hey, BQ… I’m not sure how much you remember me… I’m missing a few memories of my own… but you’ve been taking care of the lost and the forgotten, so you deserve something as well… The gift I have for you is an answer, if you’re willing to hear it.”

Palismen bond through emotion, sensations and conviction. Her own feelings were muddled and disquieted, but she sensed nothing malicious from Papa Titan.

There was just… a longing… a truth… but a truth that might be painful, and Papa Titan didn’t want to hurt her.

It had to be her choice.

The grand palisman sterned herself, serious and set. “Yes. Yes, the Bat Queen will accept this gift. I will accept.”

Papa Titan gave a slow, single nod. “This answer is for you and you alone.”

A few glyphs glowed on the Titan’s arm and then his eyes did, too - and the Bat Queen’s eyes shone with the same light. Unspoken communication just like a palisman would share, the Bat Queen felt the silent words in her heart.

[ You were not abandoned. You were protected. ]

[ You were part of a grand staff - a staff for a titan. ]

[ But that was during the war and the Archivists were killing us. ]

[ You were hurt. I did what I could to help you. But it seems like you didn’t remember everything afterwards. ]

[ Your titan died trying to shield you. ]

[ You were not forgotten… you were loved. ]

The Bat Queen was covering her eyes with her wings by then and shuddering once. The relief was bittersweet. Her babies and several of the palismen went to comfort her.

Papa heard her reply in kind.

[ Thank you. ]

Just… [ Thank you. ]

Papa Titan looked to Eda again. The old witch had finally stopped crying, but she still sniffled a time or two. 

Eda stepped away from the other members of her family, hook and hand on their respective hips. She tried to joke, “Well, grandma, I’d love to be grumpy and cynical about all this, but I guess that’d be pretty ungrateful at this point. So I give! If you want to gimme a present that bad, I’ll take it.”

A few people chuckled and so did Papa Titan. He walked a few paces closer, but still kept a respectful distance from the witch. “You’ve taken care of King for so long - and Luz - and raised them as your own… That means so much to me…” 

“…You were even willing to sacrifice everything to protect them and the people of these Isles. Your compassion should be rewarded. So… I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.” 

The Titan formed a small circle in front of his throat so someone distant would hear him. “Keeper, we could use your help now… Don’t be too flashy.”

He had barely called for him before the Keeper was there. There was a slight shimmer of light and then the robed figure was standing at the Titan’s left - a head shorter than the big bearded Titan.

That surprised a few more people. Keeper flapped his sleeves in protest, “l don’t know what you’re talking about! I’ve never been flashy in my whole life.”

The Collector giggled as if he knew that wasn’t true.

Eda squinted at the new figure, eyes critical of the Keeper’s celestial appearance. She double checked her hook’s tip just in case. “Ah huh… Collector’s big brother.” She pointed at the Titan, “The one who rebuilt your body, yeah?”

Papa Titan said, “That’s right,” and the Collector said, “Yup!”

Still, Eda honestly got a kick out of pretending to be grumpy sometimes. “So what is this: are you making me a new arm or did you do it already? Cause I’ve spent the last few years trying to play with a hook for a hand and I’m finally getting good at it! I don’t want that practice getting wasted, you know?”

Keeper floated a few paces closer to her. “Mmm, ask me tomorrow. Papa Titan had a different gift in mind for tonight.”

Papa Titan asked, “Well… what do you think, Keeper? …You can still do it?”

“One moment.” Keeper pulled the hood down over his two-colored face so it completely covered his eyes. “Let me look first.”

Keeper’s eyes started glowing through the hood’s fabric. “Okay. Okay. That. Huh. Weird. Urgh! Gross. Yeah. Him . Knew it.”

Keeper moved his hands in front of his glowing eyes like they were holding an invisible pair of binoculars, and he twisted his hands like he was adjusting the binocular’s range.

Eda crossed her arms over her chest. “I really don’t like the way you’re looking at me. Also ‘him’ who? My feathery friend?”

Keeper sighed dramatically, “One of the Archivists.” Then he flew over to scan Lilith in the same way. “Uh… not sure how to say his name in your language. I’ve gone a long time without using mortal words.”

With a simple wave, he made an illusion of another Archivist: one fully cloaked in darkness beneath his robe, with only a crescent moon for a face. 

Keeper complained while analyzing the magic in Lilith’s body, “That guy, uh, I’ll call him Crescent. He’s … terrible. We’re supposed to keep life from disappearing, some of every kind, but we do that in different ways…” 

“…Collector likes dolls, toys. They still represent the original form. Crescent likes scrolls … impartial, easy to store - and for some reason he likes sealing them with a curse for anyone who tries to free them.”

Luz raised a hand, “Like a boobytrap!” 

Keeper kept scanning Lilith. He said offhand, “No, I don’t think he uses boobs in his traps. The owl beast is still safe and sealed, no breasts involved, he just made the next carrier suffer. It might pop out as a scroll if Eda died for real, or just curse someone nearby. Unsure.”

It was very hard for Eda to hold her tongue in front of their audience. She nearly hit her head with her hook. “There is so much wrong here.”

Keeper made a final check of Lilith and then returned to Eda, “Yeah, that’s all. Still weird, but fine.”

Lilith was less confident and more defensive, “What, pray tell, is ‘still weird’?”

Keeper’s eyes stopped glowing and he pushed the hood back up over his half-golden face. He pointed back at Lilith with his sleeve, “The spell you cast on your sister - the one that split the curse. …I’m honestly surprised you could do that much. You two must have been very strong witches to accomplish even that.”

Eda rolled her eyes and then her shoulders slumped lower. “Yeah. We were.” She definitely didn’t sound hopeful. “Is this the part where you say you can undo the curse? Because after all these years, I have very low expectations.”

Keeper cheerfully said, “Nope! Not a chance!” 

Next to him the image of a big 0 appeared and disappeared just as fast.

Papa Titan almost fell over. Someone in the crowd actually did! The Titan covered his face with both hands and breathed very hard into them. 

Keeper put one sleeve to his mouth as he kept thinking. “I definitely see the problem though. Someone else sensed the curse in the scroll, might have messed with it to weaponize it, someone else actually cast it, and now it's got at least four different layers of magic involved - and that’s before we even factor all the treatments and elixirs you’ve been taking, or the magical strength of the creature inside - which is weirdly somehow in both of you.”

Papa Titan kept one hand over his eyes and was trying to seem smaller. His tail wrapped near to his right leg. “Keeper? Uh, Keeper… you’re kind of making us look bad. You said you could fix this.”

Keeper turned to him and puffed his lips out in protest. He flapped his sleeves again, “I can fix it. I just can’t undo it!”

Lilith was moving closer to her sister. “I’m still not sure I understand.”

Eda gripped her sister’s shoulder and agreed, “Yeah, uh, I’m even more confused. I was joking about the low expectations thing. You built me up for this like a lot.”

Keeper looked around, saw the watch on Gus’s wrist, and then Keeper made the image of a big clockface, the hands of which were turning backwards. “I can’t undo it. I can’t make it so the curse didn’t happen. Traveling through time is really dangerous. Wild. Often unpleasant. Particularly when life and death are involved. I do not recommend.” 

Luz was pulling at the neck of her shirt, “Yeah, haha, who would ever try something like that??” 

Keeper spread his hands apart and the clock poofed like the illusion it was. “But I can unravel the different magics involved to get the three of you… out of each other.” 

Papa Titan breathed a sigh of relief. His shoulders - and his wings - relaxed again. “Thank you, Keeper. Please lead with that.”

Eda sighed for a different reason. She’d almost been ready to believe before. Now that weary look was threatening to overtake her once more. “People have tried - a lot, for years! It never works. I get that you want to be helpful, but-”

Keeper interrupted as humbly as he could, “But you’ve never actually had me to help.” 

Keeper held a sleeve out toward his little brother, “And no offense to Collector, but I’ve also been doing this for much longer than him - and literally everyone on this planet. And I know Crescent myself. And his magic.” 

In an attempt to look confident, Keeper rolled up his sleeves and stretched his fingers. “I can do it. …You three will probably still have some symptoms from all the time you’ve spent with the curse, but I can get the creature out of you - and your own magic should return to you in time.”

Eda stayed wary and uncertain, but she was having trouble coming up with arguments. Lilith happened to say what Eda was thinking, “He does make a good case… and there are three lives involved here, not just two…”

The owl beast was not a mindless animal, even if it had been called and treated like one.

Dell and Gwendolyn made a distinct choice to let their daughters decide this for themselves. Luz wasn’t sure what to say. She wanted to believe. But Luz had also been a part of the ‘Curing Eda Fiasco’ and Wortlop’s weirdness was hard to forget.

King had slipped closer at some point and he was tugging on the edge of Eda’s dress. He asked in a tiny voice, “It can’t hurt to try, can it?”

Eda’s suspicion latched on to that. She asked Keeper directly, “Actually that’s a good question. It won’t hurt to try, will it? Because the last time we tried, knife season came early, the snakes were flying and I never did get any apple blood! Much less the stinkiest!”

Dell turned to his wife in confusion. Gwendolyn was changing colors, swallowed hard, and Luz giggled awkwardly. 

Keeper clapped once in front of him. “I know I’m bad with mortal languages, but I’m not the only person confused by that sentence, right?”

Several people raised their hands.

Papa Titan exhaled slowly and rubbed the front of his skull. “We’re going to be here all night…”

“Please,” Lilith spoke up again. She took a step in front of Eda. Even when Eda tried to protest, Lilith insisted, “If you can fix this, if you can make this better - even if all you can do is cure my sister and isolate the curse to me, you have to try.”

“Lily!” Eda was fully grabbing her sister by the arm, “That is not acceptable! Don’t even say that!”

“And unnecessary,” Keeper calmly agreed before another argument could happen. “I told you I can do it.” Keeper started shaking out his hands, tiny sparks of magic coming off his fingertips. “I’m just waiting for permission. If I don’t have your consent, this will be even harder.”

“Please,” and now it was King saying it, but he was asking it of Eda. “If they can help you…”

It didn’t help that the owl beast was also getting noisy in the back of Eda’s mind.

Luz held her hands in prayer, “Eda…”

Eda’s hair bristled and frizzed out in frustration. She surrendered with hook and hand up, “Fine! Fine. Whatever. You all win. Keeper, you do… whatever you have to do…”

There was another small bit of cheering just for that. King, Luz, Lilith were all trying to hug Eda again. Eda couldn’t stop a smile from sneaking onto her grumpy face.

The floating Collector whispered in Keeper’s ear, “Eda pretends to be cold hearted, but she actually cares a lot!”

Papa Titan stepped near to pick up King. The tiny titan was momentarily surprised, but Papa Titan spoke up, “Okay, kids, this is the part where we have to step back. Luz, you, too. Give them space.”

Luz and the others rushed to get out of the way, and Papa Titan carefully set King down again when they were a few meters distant.

Keeper began to weave his hands in subtle ways, little gestures this way or that. Strands of light were left behind by his moving fingertips. “It’s all about the layers.”

The ground underneath him was lighting up with the celestial magic of the Archivists - stars and planets, moons in their cycles. King had seen the Collector’s magic make something similar, but Keeper’s was larger, more mature, and definitely more complicated.

A similar array lit up beneath Eda and Lilith. The sisters held each other’s hands even as they felt more magic rushing in the air around them. 

Keeper had to raise his voice, “The right adjustment to the right strings!”

The array beneath them was flashing brighter and faster. Stars and planets were spinning rapidly at their feet. The air around the sisters was warping, rushing and twisting. Blades of grass and party debris were whirling in the wind.

Keeper kept gesturing this way and that, eyes glowing, seeing magic and worlds with eldritch sight - the tapestry of existence. Further, smaller, down and down, where matter was music and resonance, so many strings, all manner of light. 

Smoke and air circled the three and the spiraling light was only getting brighter. So much magic! Just like Lilith’s spell to share the pain, but also so much more - a child to a god. The two sisters were floating up off the ground, hands still holding tight, and they had to close their eyes as it all became too much. 

Light flashed pure and white and blinding. A red string was cut. 

The Boiling Isles heard an owl beast cry.

There was a flapping of wings and falling feathers left behind, and when the people could finally see, the sisters were back on the ground.

The owl beast flew free through the night sky for the first time in ages - free to soar and glide and twist and flap. It had such fun wheeling in the air with its very own limbs! 

The creature was free at last! And so were the sisters.

Free and alive…

Eda and Lilith faced each other for a moment. They had to blink after all that wind and light, and that drew their attention ever more to their other sister’s eyes.

Lilith started to speak, “You have… two gold eyes.”

Eda was smiling much bigger at her sister. “Two green eyes.” 

The white streaks in their hair were gone. Keeper managed to fix some of the accelerated aging from the curse as well! Eda’s hair was even flecked with more of the orange of her youth. She was, after all, younger than Lilith.

No beast presence in the back of their minds, and when Lilith drew a circle in the air, she could send her white light raven soaring up above.

Hootsifer burst into new tears right then and there, long body flopping and flailing on the ground. Some of the crowd comforted him.

Eda made a small circle of her own and pulled her instrument out of thin air. She promptly started strumming away at it with her hook. She laughed out loud, “Raine’s Rhapsody is back in the program!”

Even Raine was sure to be crying in seconds.

The two sisters grasped each other in the strongest hug of their lives, shrieking in glee, relief and wonder! The owl beast went to go find some voles for dinner.

The Keeper, on the other hand, was swaying lopsided in air like a drunk with vertigo. He was slowly turning in place and sleeved hands held the side of his head, “Urrrrgh! Crescent is… such… a jerk!”

“Keeper!” Papa Titan flapped over to him in a fearful hurry, cleared the distance in one leap, but Collector was faster. The star child was even then conjuring a cold pack, blanket, and reclining chair, and helped Keeper have a seat. He also made a big fan and aimed it at the Keeper.

Keeper’s head was still slightly swaying, but the magical cold pack helped. “I’ll be fine! All good! No worries! Just, oof! …Someone come up with a really good swear for me, cause I want to say something bad about Crescent!”

The crowd was halfway to a whole new celebration and so many people wanted to hug Eda again. Porta-Hooty was sobbing like mad and wrapping around Lilith for a hug of his own, stammering wild words of jubilation. Raine and Eda nearly kissed, and only stopped because of Eda’s loved ones wanting to get involved in the hugs.

Eda had to fuss the crowd back for a moment because, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on, I gotta check!”

Eda held up her left hand and concentrated, eyes squinting… and then her hand shifted into its feathery clawed form instead. Eda exclaimed, “Hot dang! I still got harpy powers!”

She popped up the rest of her wings and feathers just for fun, grabbed Raine and flapped them off the ground for an aerial kiss.

People were laughing even more. The two lovers were practically radiant in the starlight above.

Papa Titan’s tail was slowly swishing behind him, content and satisfied that the spell had worked out after all. He got a little closer to his son and took a knee, “Well… what do you think, King? Did your dad do good?”

The smaller titan looked up at him and then hugged him for a long time. 

“You did great.”

……

There was still so much to do and talk about. Luz’s party went on for a long time, and Papa Titan was pretty sure that new people kept arriving. They might have invited themselves after hearing about everything through Penstagram, or to investigate the source of all those mystic light shows. The whole gang even got involved in a game of human baseball!

But the night kept rolling forward - even a night as lovely as this.

The owl beast was laying near the griffin and other big animals, and different people took turns feeding or petting the happy owl beast. After all that time with Eda and Lilith, the owl beast started to see them as its family, too.

Papa Titan sat at one of the tables, with King curled up and half asleep in his lap. Papa Titan lovingly stroked his back, a smile of contentment on his face. He looked up at the stars with his own eyes. Old constellations had shifted over all those millenia, but it was still his sky… He breathed, and the ancient air was his own. 

Oh to be flesh and home once more… with family, found and otherwise…

“Dad?” King sleepily looked up at Papa Titan. 

Papa Titan looked down at the child he loved from afar for all those thousands of years. “Yes, King?” 

King stretched out his limbs like a dog, but he didn’t want to get up. “What happens tomorrow?”

“Anything you want…” Papa Titan laughed at the memory of King’s Penstagram declaration. “We could ‘do parent-kid stuff, toss a ball, burn some cookies, catch you going on weird websites or something… or teach you about that symbol from the tower you hatched in’…”

Sleepy King chuckled softly to himself, cuddling even closer to his parent’s stomach. The tiniest worry made King second guess it, “You aren’t… going to take me away from Eda, are you?”

“Never,” Papa Titan said so sweetly. He rubbed at King’s back more and reassured him, “There was a time I lost my family… everyone I ever loved… I never want to put you through that…”

King nodded along to himself, barely able to keep his eyes open. “That’s what I thought…”

And Eda may not have been trying to eavesdrop, but Papa Titan still noticed her on the other side of the table. She was sipping her apple blood and smiling at them both. Papa Titan glanced at her even as he spoke to King, “Eda is the one who raised you… She’s your mother… and Luz is your sister… They’ll always be your family… I just… wanted to be part of your family, too…”

The young titan gave a long yawn, mouth going wide. The yawn slurred his words as he replied, “That’s… what I want, too…”

Eda didn’t say anything. She just smiled and raised her glass to the titan, a silent toast of acceptance, but the message was clear.

‘Welcome to the family.’

In the stillness of the evening, in the gentle quiet of the dark, Papa Titan almost cried himself… because to be with that family was all he ever really wanted… The day could only have been better if the other members of their family could have been with them, too… all the other lost titans…

Papa Titan looked up at the night sky and wondered if their family could see them from the other side. He whispered softly, “At yeast we have each other…”

The Titan walked that world again… and he brought a papa’s love with him.