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Luz had gone home that evening. He knew it wasn’t a big deal, the portal door was fixed now, and she’d be back tomorrow after her human school to see him. But still, the Owl House felt empty without her. And there was no one to share his sleep cocoon with.
King tossed around on the mound of blankets and pillows that he called a bed, trying to fluff and smash until it was comfortable. Outside, the winds howled in a low and somber moan and caused the wooden floors and stucco exterior of the house to creak. The window twitched open from the winds, the latch not completely secure. The old joints let out a soft squeak, as the window lazily swayed open. The cool night breeze ran a chill through the room, causing King to shiver.
He peaked his eyes open and then drug himself from his bed to the window. Jumping up on a chest, he grabbed onto the window frame before coming to a sudden pause. The Boiling Isles looked different now. Sure, much of the Isles had been rebuilt and all symbols of Belos’s rule removed. The people of the Boiling Isles sometimes referred to it as the fatherland, that the Titan was parent and guardian to them all as its bones lay open in the dark sea.
Except for King it was true. He came from the Titan, much like any other tree or flower that blossomed there. He once overheard Luz explain the Titan to her mom as an “ecosystem”. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he felt it.
From his window, King could see where the Titan’s arm was now raised, skeletal fingers now scraping against the barrier of the atmosphere, almost grasping the stars. How sad: to be so close to something and yet so far.
Finally closing the window, King jumped down from the chest. But instead of returning to his cocoon of pillows and blankets, he crept out of the room. He stepped carefully on each floorboard so as to not make them squeak. Once he was down the hall, he pushed open the door to Eda’s room. She was flopped in her nest, arms splayed out, hair in tangled knots, and a thin sliver of drool hanging from her open mouth. She snored too, a cross between a purr and the screech of well… and owl. Beside her lay Raine, stiff in their sleep and not at all bothered by Eda.
King slipped past them, walking on all fours to increase his balance. He approached Owlbert’s tiny nest, where the palisman was also happily asleep in the mix of branches. “Psst, Owlbert,” he whispered. Owlbert opened both eyes in an instance. His once serene expression now turned into a hard grimace. He opened his beak to chirp with disappointment, but King cut him off. “Don’t wake Eda and Raine. I need a favor. I promise we’ll be back soon but I just… I have to do this. Please?”
At first, Owlbert jerked his head away in a scoff. After all, it was the middle of the night. But then his little black eyes met King’s. He sighed, relinquishing himself into a staff that dropped down into King’s claws.
***
King had never flown by himself. He always had Eda or Luz to hold onto. So now, being all alone in the sky, he felt a strange sense of both independence and fear. The air kept getting colder and thinner, like the threads of a blanket slowly being pulled apart. Beneath him, Bonesborough looked like nothing more than a small pebble on the shoreline.
He had flown above the sizzling clouds and to the edge of the atmosphere when he landed. The Titan’s hand swayed as King stepped down onto the raw bone. It smelled like ozone and flesh, not rotting flesh or living flesh, just flesh. Owlbert separated from the staff to rest on King’s shoulder. Then, King crawled his way to the fingers, digging his claws into the sinew for balance. Once reaching as high as he could go, he wrapped both arms around the bones.
He tried not to think of how high up he was, even though the Titan’s skull looked distant from up there. Its hollow eye sockets stared outward with an all seeing benevolence and yet indifference. King swallowed, “Hi, Dad.” He hugged the finger a little tighter. “I uhh just thought I would come see you."
A few lights still glistened from the towns, perhaps witches working late or parents soothing crying children. They had made their home within those bones. Buried themselves deep within the ribs, the toes, and on the coast of the leg. It made King’s chest feel heavy and his legs unsteady. This was more than bones and meat. These people had made their homes in the corpse of his own father. King had grown up in the carcass from which he was made.
What once felt like a simple fact, the Isles are made of the bones of a Titan, now felt more harrowing, more real. These bones were once animate. That skull once produced a roar so loud, a final calling only King had heard. “Son.” He could imagine the skeleton alive. Warm with pumping blood and tufts of fur. When the Titan walked, did the ocean quake and ripple? Could the Titan pull up islands from the water and settle there?
And there were other Titans too. Though, King had seen their skulls and bones used for decor by the Titan trappers. If seeing people live within the bones of his father wasn’t enough, he had to see what had become of his own kin. The piles of bones would never seem to end, as if his whole world were skeletons all the way down.
And if his father had lived, then what? Would this hand be soft with skin, scratching a claw along his head? Would that skull be smiling and making puns? And what of the people of the Boiling Isles? Where would they have gone? Would they even exist?
He had so many questions. And no one left to answer them.
“Great view from up here,” a familiar voice called behind him.
“Weh!” King turned around with a startle, feet nearly slipping off the bones and down to the far waters below. Eda stood in front of him, perched on another finger, harpy wings spread proudly like stars across the vast sky. “Eda? How did you know I left?”
She shrugged, a few loose feathers flying from her shoulders. “You mean when I woke up in the middle of the night to find my palisman gone and you out of bed? I had a hunch.” Owlbert chirped, jumping from King’s shoulder to Eda’s.
King sighed, back slumping back against the index finger. “Sorry, Eda. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
She sat down beside him, the feathers on her arms and legs tickling against his fur. She smiled softly, the sharp point of her one tooth poking from under her lip. “So, quality time with your pops, huh?”
“Yeah. From up here, it feels like I can see him better,” King admitted. But it also felt like he was being held. Displayed proudly to the world as if to say, “This is my son! The greatest of my creations.”
Eda chuckled and shook her head. “I still can’t believe you’re gonna get to be that big someday. How am I supposed to carry you around when you’re the size of a city?”
King scoffed, “A Titan doesn’t need to be carried!” Then he paused, another realization dawning on him. “But that probably won’t be for awhile right?”
“Unless you have a major growth spurt soon, probably not.” Then Eda leaned back against the boney finger, tucking her arms (one intact and the other a stump) behind her head and crossing her legs. Her black and golden eyes looked up, not at the stars or the moon or anything else in particular, just up. King watched her for a time, how the wind caught strands of her graying hair. “So,” she finally spoke. “What was so important that you came to talk to your dad instead of me?”
“What? No! It’s not like that!” He didn’t mean to make Eda feel unneeded. She raised him for Titan’s sake (quite literally for the Titan’s sake, actually). But when she cackled at his panic, he realized she was only trying to tease him. King drew his gaze away from her. He drew his knees up to his chest and let his tail flick anxiously. “I’ve just been thinking a lot.” That was all he could manage to say about it without feeling a choke in his throat.
“Well, don’t leave me hanging,” Eda replied.
King sucked in a sigh, and then let it go all at once. “Every day, I walk around in his body. I have to see his bones and flesh. I’m so close to him, Eda! He’s right here and I never even got the chance to speak to him!” Wet tears bubbled in the corners of his eyes. They slid down the exterior of his skull and then matted on his fur. “All that time, he was still somewhat alive! Luz said he could see me! And he never used what power he had left to see me. I mean, I know he gave it to Luz to save us, and I’m glad he did. But even when Luz went into that portal space the first time… he didn’t tell her about me. He didn’t even try to call out.” The tears were coming hard now, like the gush of boiling rain in a bad storm. King really didn’t like crying. Titans weren’t supposed to cry. And it made him feel small and powerless.
Eda was clearly shocked, her jaw hanging slightly open. Of course she wasn’t expecting him to have such complex feelings for a parent he never knew. But then she readjusted, using her one remaining hand to lift King and onto her lap. “Aww, kid. You need to know that your dad was a very wise Titan. Sure he didn’t come for you, but he was watching you. And maybe your dad knew that power would be needed to protect you someday. Parents make hard choices for the sake of their kids.”
“I know,” King muttered. “I just wish I knew what it would be like to have my dad, and not just bones. Just to know he was there for me.”
Eda sunk her one sharp tooth into her lip, clearly considering what he said. “When I was a kid,” she said with a smile. “There was this really old nursery rhyme my mom used to tell me. She learned it from her mom, who learned it from her mom, who learned it from her mom, and... well you can imagine how long this goes on. But I think it might help you feel better.”
“I don’t think your little baby songs will help,” he retorted.
“Aww come on, just listen.” King wouldn’t admit it, but it was nice to sit on Eda’s lap, surrounded by the gentle night. He could feel her breathing against his back and the formation of air that created her words. So he leaned back, tilting his face to look up at hers. And as she spoke, he could feel the presence of the Isles move through his veins.
“I am the Titan, provider for all.
I am father and mother to all things, big and small.
My flesh makes the soil to grow you fresh grain.
My bones make the shelter to protect you from rain.
My lungs make the winds that caress your hair.
My blood makes lakes so you may swim on days fair.
My laughter makes the stars that help you find your way.
My body makes the warm home where you sleep and stay.
My sadness makes the sunset and my joy the dawn.
And my heart makes magic, so you may know me even if I’m gone.”
When Eda finished, the now silence was all King could hear. He sniffed and rubbed his arm across his eyes, sweeping away the fresh tears that fell. “That uhh did make me feel a little better, I guess.”
Eda tugged him into a close hug. “It’s okay to be sad. But don’t think your dad wasn’t looking out for you. Your dad’s last gift to you was all of this.” She pointed out at the Isles, at all the cities in the dim glow of night, at the snow capped knee, and the shoulder slopes.
King felt the bones of the island in his own bones. Every fiber of the Isles, from every speck of dirt to the tallest trees, all breathed at once– a great sigh into the universe. Yes, the Titan, his dad, was gone. And yet like any good parent, the Titan provided. How poetic that a parent’s body may become their child’s home. That their decay provides nourishment and their spirit– hope.
King pressed his head against Eda’s shoulder. She had a distinct earthy smell, like old leaves in the dewey morning, but mixed with heavy wafts of perfume. Her hug was comforting, the same arms that carried him around for so many years. She was a good parent too. And perhaps, his dad brought Eda to him. It was there, in the bones of his fatherland, that the best possible mother was brought to him.
He hugged her back, his short arms just long enough to wrap around her waist, his face against the fabric of her dress and the ruffle of her feathers. “Thanks, Eda.”