Fanfic / How To Tame Your Demon Beast

How To Tame Your Demon Beast is a The Owl House fanfic written on Archive of Our Own by SpaceButterflies. Completed at 19 chapters, it got a sequel, The Demon Beast of Gravesfield.

Following his little unauthorized stunt at Eclipse Lake, Hunter is punished with cleaning duty. More precisely, he has to scrub the castle top to bottom, but that's alright! He can do that!

Problem is, by going in the castle's basement to finish his work, he actually stumbles upon something that might be his uncle's biggest secret. Why, exactly, would Belos keep some demon beast locked up underfoot?

A demon beast who might not be a beast at all, in truth...

This story will reveal a major spoiler by using background lore. You are warned!

Contains the following tropes

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Hunter in canon loathed Caleb's memory as he assumed a man who used to be Belos' brother had to be just as awful as the Emperor himself. This iteration of Hunter is given the opportunity to meet Caleb and learn he might have done mistakes but he's far from being a monster and is actually a somewhat decent person.
• Adaptational Villainy: You thought Belos couldn't do worse to his sibling than killing him in spite of Caleb's attempts at reconciliation? Picture Philip cursing his sibling into the Owl Beast to use him as some attack dog to further his ascendance as Emperor of the Boiling Isles before throwing him in a dark basement to be chained and whipped and starved and periodically maimed to provide the materials needed to create a Grimwalker.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Luz only glances at the demon beast besides Hunter and immediately understands it's actually somebody under a curse — justified since she's living with Eda and got familiar with the appearance of a Forced Transformation.
• Big Brother Instinct: Inverted with Philip who grants Caleb a reprieve as the older sibling is about to be dragged to the gallows — by claiming Caleb was enthralled by Evelyn and as such ought to be spared as a victim.
• Burn the Witch!: A very pervasive attitude in the 1600s colonial Connecticut — it's heavily implied that Mrs Wittebane fell victim to it when her children were quite young, and Caleb barely escaped being hanged when the harvest was bad and his village sought a scapegoat.
• Clones Are People, Too: After learning the truth about the grimwalkers, Caleb refers to them as his children and is openly disgusted by Philip dismissing them as tools that can be replaced.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Hunter cannot manage to wrap his head around Caleb's protective, loving behaviour around him — part of it caused by him being much healthier than the man and realistically awkward around a man he just barely met, but mostly because Belos' idea of child-raising was horrendously low on love and proper care.
• Crapsack World: Colonial Gravesfield wasn't exactly the best home in Caleb's recollections. If the general hysteria against the witch is a major reason for it, there's also smaller details such as the small-mindedness railroading people in a role or another and the possibility of starvation.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Flapjack doesn't really notice how much time is flowing, so cannot inform Caleb he was stuck as a demon beast much longer than Hunter's lifespan.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: For all of Belos' sins against his brother and the Boiling Isles, Caleb cannot entirely forget Philip used to be his precious little brother and keeps showing worry and sorrow as they are fighting.
• Everyone Has Standards: Eda really doesn't like anyone doing the Emperor's will, but when Luz brings Hunter and an unconscious Caleb back to the Owl House, she agrees to host them as long as they need because Hunter is a kid stuck in a completely shitty situation and Caleb is struggling with the same curse as her.
• Evil Is Petty: Philip wasn't content to curse his older brother to become a demon beast, he decided Caleb would be the perfect weapon to ravage witch villages and further his agenda against wild magic by posing as a saviour able to sudbue the rampaging monster. Oh, and he didn't care if Caleb mauled his witch bride and half-witch child in the process.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Caleb is very much confused and startled by pens and t-shirts after first waking up as himself, and it becomes even worse when he's stranded with the Hexsquad in the Human Realm and has to use the laundry machine.
• Fluffy Tamer: What is Hunter's reaction when he finds a feral demon beast chained in his uncle's basement? Why, feeding the poor critter meat and medicine, it was positively starved and sickly-looking! Caleb's Owl Beast actually grows to trust him for this simple kindness.
• Foil:
  • The Wittebane brothers, to each other. Both of them grew up in the smothering, toxic mindset of New England Puritanism, but Caleb found the courage to mature beyond his prejudices and learn to love magic as something beautiful and wonderful, while Philip doubled down on his hatred to the point he's ready to enact genocide. Also, their relationship with Hunter — in spite of raising the boy since childhood, Belos refuses to see him as anything more than yet another attempt to replace Caleb by a sibling more palatable to him, while Caleb immediately adopts a paternal behaviour towards the teen after meeting him.
  • Philip and Lilith both grew resentful towards their siblings, ultimately venting their frustrations by cursing them to be possessed by a demon beast. Lilith immediately regretted her fit of spite and spent years trying to cure Eda, but Philip decided Caleb as a feral monster was more useful to his plans for destroying wild magic, reducing him to a leashed weapon.
  • It doesn't escape to Luz's notice that she's one to Caleb, both of them growing tired with Gravesfield's unrelenting pressure for them to conform to societal expectations, fleeing to the Boiling Isles and having a deep bond with a Clawthorne witch. However, Luz was already enamoured with magic when she went through the portal, while Caleb needed some time to grow beyond his prejudice. Luz's mother is more worried about her daughter endangering herself, Caleb's brother couldn't accept his decision and willingly destroyed his new life.
• Freudian Excuse: Growing up in the smothering atmosphere of a Puritan village, Caleb had no other choice than conform to his era's prejudices by becoming a witch hunter. The hint that his own mother was victim of the hysteria automatically launched towards single women daring to have no need for a man's protection also points at him toeing the line because he feared living through the same traumatic experience yet again.
• Gender Flip: Canon refers to Flapjack with male pronouns. Here, Hunter uses the more neutral "they" while Caleb favours "her" and "she".
• Half-Human Hybrid: Since Caleb is assumed to be Hunter's biological dad, the natural conclusion is for Hunter to be this. It actually brings comfort to the teen, since it means his lack of magic wasn't a birth defect but him taking after the human side of his family. Belos' recollection of little Edith Clawthorne, Caleb's biological daughter by Evelyn, later confirms a half-human witch's magic is heavily decreased since she was barely able to cast a light spell.
• Hope Spot: In spite of their disastrous first meeting as people able to talk to each other, Hunter swiftly warms up to Caleb, basking in the quiet mundanity of having a dad who loves him. As he bitterly comments after noticing the discrepancies in the timeline, it was too good to be true.
• Hypocrite: Caleb verbally flays Belos when the Emperor insists the Boiling Isles are a bad influence on the older Wittebane brother — after all, Philip is the one who crowned himself Emperor of the witches and sought to wield magic, not Caleb.
• Living Distant Ancestor: Caleb Wittebane is confirmed to be related to the Clawthorne sisters, as they are the fifth generation to descend from him and Evelyn.
• Love at First Sight: Subverted — as Luz fantasies about Caleb and Evelyn immediately falling for each other when they were introduced, the man laughs and admits he actually was wary and mistrustful of the beautiful young woman who didn't care for acceptable behaviour, as a thoroughly indocrinated Puritan witch hunter. It took him chasing her into another realm to start to see her otherwise.
• Love Redeems: Caleb describes the man he used to be as somebody who only succeeded in hurting other people when he believed he was doing good. Meeting Evelyn opened his eyes and allowed him to grow in a better person.
• Metaphorically True: After allowing Caleb to wake up lucid for the first time since three centuries and a half, he's immediately assumed to be Hunter's dad. As the man's clone, Hunter could indeed be seen as Caleb's offspring.
• Mistaken Nationality: Since the Thirteen Colonies didn't have the time to undergo a significant vowel shift, Caleb is speaking with a British accent. Luz asking him about his English village prompts him to correct the mistake and reveal he's from the colonies, giving the girl her first clue about the discrepancies in the timeline.
• Morality Pet: A very messed up example with Caleb. Belos has no qualms cursing him, unleashing his demon beast form against hapless witches and mistreating it for centuries, while flying in a temper when Caleb calls him out on his hypocrisy and refuses to go along with his plan, but there is lingering hints of genuine care beneath that. Philip actually hesitates when his brother begs for him to not implement the Day of Unity instead of flat-out refusing, never wavers in his wish to bring Caleb back to the Human Realm, insists he never raised a hand against Caleb's descendants by Evelyn and considers to give a grimwalker to his brother to raise.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Philip cheerfully claims that after the Day of Unity, he and Caleb can go back to Earth and Connecticut, and everything will be normal again. An horrified and disgusted Caleb fires back that three centuries and a half have passed so Earth certainly won't be how they remember it, and after being cursed by his own brother, Caleb certainly doesn't want to trust Philip as he used to do.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Luz quietly declares she can relate to Caleb's desperate need to leave Earth for another world entirely, obviously empathizing with the man trying to escape his crappy life after stumbling on love and magic.
• Papa Wolf: Caleb will step between any perceived threat and Hunter, in spite of being a squishy human and still reeling from hearing extremely traumatizing news. Hunter doesn't know how to react to that, since it's his first experience with a genuinely benevolent parental figure.
• Single Sex Offspring: Downplayed with the Clawthorne bloodline as Caleb mentions his wife Evelyn had four sisters, Belos mentions their child was a daughter, and their two prominent scions in the modern era are Lilith and Eda, but there's nonetheless a few males such as Dell.
• Spotting the Thread: Caleb mentioning he's from the colonies first alarms Luz, prompting her to ask him the year. He answers 1676, causing her to panic as she understands it's an even bigger, thornier mess than believed.
• Strong Family Resemblance: A barely conscious Caleb mistakes Eda for his wife Evelyn as he wakes up lucid for the first time in three hundreds fifty years, and the Clawthorne sisters later acknowledge Caleb looks like a blonde, thinner Dell Clawthorne. It's also assumed to be the reason why Hunter is Caleb writ small.
• Tragic Time Traveler: Hunter and Luz fret at the prospect of telling Caleb that he's now stuck several centuries in the future, and even if he didn't kill his wife and child, he certainly outlived them a long time ago.
• Trauma Button:
  • Belos turns the demon beast hostile on the spot — centuries of starvation and whipping will do that to you. Merely seeing the Emperor's face causes Caleb to freak and transform.
  • Rather low-key, but watching Hunter latching on Caleb causes Luz not a small amount of anguish as she guessed they're not related at all, but Hunter is attached now and losing Caleb as a dad will hurt him just as much as Luz hurt when Manny Noceda died from illness.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Belos decides to retire Hunter on the spot when he learns the teen was tending to the demon beast he was mistreating.
• Wizards Live Longer: Implied as the number of generations between Caleb and the Clawthorne sisters is only five, for three hundreds fifty years separating them. Eda later confirms a witch's usual lifespan is 120 years and easily goes beyond that when the witch is powerful enough.
• Wrong Assumption: Because Caleb looks too much like Hunter for it to be a coincidence, and because the Emperor always claimed Hunter's family had been destroyed by wild magic, the teen leaps to the conclusion that Caleb is his dad, and he messed up with wild magic, and when he was cursed he went on a rampage and mauled his wife to death. It's an awful backstory that makes sense with the information Hunter currently has — and the truth manages to be so much worse.
• You Can't Go Home Again: As Evelyn is about to bring Caleb to the Boiling Isles forever, the young man somberly reflects he won't be able to turn back, ever. Not after being almost dragged to the gallows as a witch, to serve as the village's scapegoat for the bad harvest.

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