Brainy and the Beast

by detectivejigsaw

Summary:

Stanford Pines is a strange old man living in a cabin on the edge of town, isolated from everyone aside from his friends Fiddleford and Tate, and with strangely few memories of his past and a deep, abiding fear of the nearby forest that not even he understands the reasons for.
Then one day his niece and nephew are sent to live with him, and despite his warnings they end up straying into the woods.
And while they're there, they find a mysterious Beast, and all their lives are changed forever...

Written as a gift for AlexTWDgf01, since it's based on an idea of theirs and they said I could write it as long as I gave them the credit for it, so I'm finally cashing in on that deal.
Hopefully I do it justice. 🤞

Notes:

• For AlexTWDgf01.

Chapter 1: First impressions are important

Stanford Pines was fully aware that he didn’t fit in with the townsfolk of Gravity Falls.  But as far back as he could remember he had never fit in anywhere, so he usually didn’t let it bother him.

 

Stanford had always known that he was different from other people.

He was interested in and attracted to strange things, and liked to ask strange questions that he would then try to find the answers to, like why the sky was blue, or what made fire burn, or if there was life on other planets (heck, he was the only person in this provincial town who seemed to know that other planets existed , or even what a planet was ).  He read books as often as he could get his hands on them, and did extensive studies of the strange creatures that lived in the surrounding forest, which all the other superstitious (or just plain stupid and oblivious) people avoided like the plague.  Oh, and Stanford (or Ford, as he would have liked to be called by his friends, if he’d had any) had six fingers on each hand, which meant he had been accused of witchcraft on several occasions, and nearly led to him being burned at the stake once, until he used a few of his inventions to scare the angry mob away (they hadn’t tried again, but he’d lost count of the number of times people made signs to ward off the evil eye when he passed them in the street).

 

So when he received a letter one day, informing him that his only remaining relatives, a twin boy and girl named Mason and Mabel, needed him to become their guardian because their parents and grandfather had died... he was apprehensive.  Not just because he had so little experience with children; he was worried that they would see him as an odd, dangerous wizard too.  And for some reason, hearing that they were twins created an uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

 

Fiddleford said he was, as usual, overthinking things, and he should at least get to know the children before he set himself up for them not liking him.

Who’s Fiddleford, you ask?

Oh, right.  Sorry, I lied.

Ford had exactly one friend: a fellow inventor (arguably even better at the craft than he was) named Fiddleford McGucket.  He was accused of witchcraft less often than Ford, but he was still seen as dangerous and somewhat mentally unstable (which probably had something to do with his habit of building automatons and their having once or twice gone rogue and attacked the town).  He and his son Tate lived in a house/workshop on Ford’s property, and were more or less his only interactions with people unless he was forced to go into town for some reason, until the day when the children arrived.

---

Ford wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he went to the village square to collect them...but he knew it wasn’t a high-pitched, excited squeal and being nearly knocked off his feet by an explosion of color surging towards him and wrapping itself around his middle.

“Oh my gosh are you our Great Uncle Stanford it’s so nice to finally meet you Grandpa Shermie told us a lot about you but we never thought we’d get to see you in person oh wow you really do have six fingers, that’s incredible it’s like a whole finger friendlier than normal!”

Even through his dazed attempt to follow that sentence, Ford decided that he liked this girl (he managed to ascertain that it was a girl once he extricated himself)-she was weird.

The boy was more wary than his sister, waiting by the fountain where they’d been dropped off until Ford was free, before stepping forward and giving him a shy nod.

“Um.  Hi.”

“Hello, Mason.”  Ford offered his hand.  Mason’s eyes stared curiously at his extra finger, but he didn’t seem repulsed by it.  He just reciprocated the handshake, with a somewhat sweaty hand.

 

Mabel looked confused for a second, before her own eyes widened and she laughed.

“Ohhhh, I get it, you don’t know!  Everyone in our family-” her voice faltered a little bit, before she visibly forced it back to its earlier bubbliness- “calls him Dipper!”

Ford gave them a puzzled stare.  “...Dipper?”

The boy sighed, and then lifted his hat before pulling back his bangs.

“Oh.  I see.”  Ford knelt down and examined the birthmark etched across his forehead.  “It’s a remarkable likeness.”

Dipper blushed, but also seemed pleased with his assessment-and perhaps a little relieved too.  Most likely he received the same sort of persecution for it as Ford did for his hands.

Ford began to feel like perhaps he could form a kinship (ha ha) with his niece and nephew after all.

---

Mabel chattered excitedly about their trip (what kind of animals they’d seen during their travels, what they’d eaten, etc.) as they gathered their (scant) luggage, and headed towards the house.  Dipper was more reticent, but he contributed the occasional comment.

As they walked, Ford wondered if he should offer some sort of condolences about their parents.  On the other hand, they didn’t seem too upset at the moment, and bringing them up might make them start to cry or something and he knew even less about dealing with crying children than he did about dealing with them when they were happy or at least emotionally stable.  But if he didn’t say anything, didn’t that make him seem a little insensitive about the whole thing?

He was spared from the paralyzing indecision when a voice yelled, “LOOK OUT BELOW!” just before a giant, flaming projectile came crashing to the ground right in front of them.

 

The children immediately latched on to each other with alarmed screams, falling over their own feet in an attempt to escape what, after a moment in which his heart tried to restart, Ford recognized as an enormous hunk of metal that had been formed into the shape of a dragon’s head.  Spurts of fire were shooting out of its mouth and eyes, and setting the nearby grass on fire.

“Awww, dang blame it all!” a voice called out in irritation, as a giant headless automaton came trotting out of the trees (or to be more precise, smashing through them).  After a moment, a wizened figure with a long white beard popped out the top of the neck, and scrambled down its side with surprisingly monkeylike agility as it came to a halt.  He snatched a wooden bucket from the corner of the house and scrambled over to the head, hurriedly dumping water over it and extinguishing the flames.  He absentmindedly put out a small fire that had started up in his beard, muttering about “dang incendiaries” and “must’ve added a mite too much kerosene,” until Ford cleared his throat.

 

Fiddleford looked up in confusion, and adjusted his large green spectacles before they could slide down his nose.

“What?  I tole you it’s a work in progress-”

Then his eyes landed on the two children, who were standing behind Ford and looking more than a little terrified.

“...Oh.”

The old man raised his hand and waved at them sheepishly.

“...Howdy, kidlets.  Sorry ‘bout that.  Jes’ workin’ out a few kinks in Old Bessie here, didn’t mean ta frighten ya none.”

Dipper blinked.  “Uh-what?”

Fiddleford squared his thin shoulders, and then hefted the giant head up onto his back.  “Old Man McGucket, local kook and part-time inventor, at your service!”  He spat on his greasy palm, and offered it to the children.

Dipper stepped back, wrinkling his nose.  “Why did you just spit on your hand?”

Fiddleford shrugged.  “I don’t rightly know!”  He was just about to wipe it off on his beard when Mabel stepped forward, spat on her own hand, and grabbed his, pumping vigorously.

“Nice to meet you, Old Man McGucket!  I’m Mabel, and this is my twin brother Dipper!  We’re here to live with our Great Uncle Stanford!”

Ford made a mental note to teach the children about his findings on the importance of personal hygiene, and the tiny invisible creatures that he’d learned lived in people’s bodies which should generally not be spread around because that was what led to diseases.

---

***

---

Dipper wondered just what kind of place they were being forced to make their new home.

So far it appeared to be populated by at least one lunatic, which made him wonder a little suspiciously about Great Uncle Stanford’s own mental stability if he was letting this McGucket guy live here.

...Granted, it was nice that his first response to learning of Dipper’s nickname and birthmark had not included any kind of ridicule, which was a pleasant change from the norm.  And Grandpa Shermie and their parents (he tried to ignore the lump in his throat that rose as he remembered them) had at least seemed to trust him enough to make him their guardian.

But he still watched the old man with wary eyes as they made their way to the house and stepped inside.

And once they were inside the house properly, he realized that his suspicions might be partly correct: this seemed like the kind of house that would belong to a wizard, or an alchemist.

 

Everywhere he looked, there were books-stacked haphazardly in piles, resting on tables, and even a few of them were on a mostly-empty bookcase in one corner of the main room.  There were also hundreds of papers, covered in untidy scrawls and drawings of strange creatures, left seemingly wherever they’d been set down.  A series of enormous glass jars was set against a wall, and inside them there appeared to be a wide variety of preserved plant and animal specimens-many of which were wholly unfamiliar.  And on another table, as they went into another room, Dipper saw a series of unique glass containers in unfamiliar shapes and sizes that were filled with strange, bubbling liquids, and a couple of which had fires lit underneath them.

...He wasn’t sure if he was more frightened or intrigued.

Mabel, who was generally the more optimistic of the two, had settled on the latter; she kept looking at everything with wide, curious eyes, and reaching out to touch everything that was close enough.

“This place is amazing !” she piped up at last.  “You have so much cool stuff, Great Uncle Stanford!”

Stanford, who had been walking steadily ahead of them through the house, let out a startled noise and spun around.

 

He stared down at them for a few seconds, wearing a very odd expression, before shaking his head.

“What?  Oh.  Yes.”  Then, as what seemed like an afterthought, “...Thank you.”

Dipper’s fears were starting to reassert themselves ( what was that all about is something wrong with him that Grandpa didn’t know about is he going to randomly go insane and try to kill us ) when Stanford spoke again: “...I’ve cleared some space for you in the attic, if that’s all right.”

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, then back at him, and shrugged.

“That’s fine.”

“It’s probably better than some of the places we’ve been sleeping for the last week!”

A pinched frown appeared between his eyebrows.  “...I see.  Well, come with me.”  He turned again.

---

The attic seemed comfortable enough; it was mostly empty, aside from a bed set up on each side of the room.  Mabel immediately set about decorating her side with what seemed like every picture she’d ever drawn in her life, while Dipper dumped his pack on his bed and sat down with a small sigh.  He noted, with a hint of pleased surprise, that the mattress seemed to be filled with something far more comfortable than the straw he was used to.

 

Stanford stood uncomfortably in the doorway, fumbling with his hands, as the children explored the room.

“...I suppose I’ll leave you alone, then.  Unless there’s anything you need?”

“How about seein’ if they’d like some food?” a voice drawled dryly from behind him.

It belonged to a man in light green clothes, with a hat pulled down over his eyes and bearing a passing resemblance to Old Man McGucket.  “They’ve been travelin’ all day, ya might wanna see if they’re hungry.”

Stanford startled again as he turned around, before relaxing.  “Oh-of course.  Thank you, Tate.”

Dipper couldn’t tell, but it looked a little bit like Tate rolled his eyes based on his posture.

“Sure, I’m starving!” Mabel chirped.

Dipper considered.  He hadn’t had much of an appetite over the last few weeks, after the thing-he-was-trying-not-to-think-about-too-much.  But…

“I could eat.”

Tate bobbed his head.  “Kay.”  Without further ado, he turned and clomped towards the stairs.

 

Stanford gave them an awkward smile.  “...Tate’s not much of a talker.  But he’s a hard worker, and he basically keeps things running around here when Fiddleford and I get caught up in our research.”

“What kind of stuff do you research?” Dipper asked curiously.

Stanford hesitated.  “...This land has many interesting types of plants and animals.”

“Ooh, like giraffes?” Mabel asked.  “Grandpa told us about those!  He says-” she faltered again- “said he saw one once, and they’ve got the longest necks in the world!”

“...Not exactly.  Or at least, I have never seen a giraffe in this part of the world.  But...perhaps at some point I will show you what I mean.”

Dipper felt his intrigue gain a little ground over the fright.

“In the meantime, though, I think I should set some ground rules.”  Stanford straightened his already-pretty-straight back, and began pacing in front of them.  “First of all, don’t touch any of my experiments unless I tell you it’s safe.  Some of the substances that I work with are very dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

...Definitely a wizard or an alchemist.

“You are free to ask questions about whatever you want, and I will do my best to answer them.  The best way to learn things is by asking questions.”

“What about by doing things?” Mabel asked.

“That is a natural part of asking questions.”  Stanford gave her a tight smile which quickly evaporated, as he began the next sentence.  “And finally-stay out of the forest.  Never go in there unless I or Fiddleford or Tate come with you.”

 

Dipper tilted his head.  “Why?”

That look from earlier crossed his great uncle’s face again.  This time he recognized the kind of emotions that were used to make it up: something between blank confusion, and a rush of fear.

It was enough to make goosebumps rise on Dipper’s arms.

After a moment Stanford collected himself, and said, “Not all of the creatures that live here are friendly.”

“What, like wolves?” Mabel asked.

“There are wolves, yes.”  He looked ready to say something else; instead he followed with, “I’ll have Tate bring you up some food shortly; it should be almost ready.  Let me know if you need anything else.”

And he went away, leaving the children alone in their new room.

Chapter 2: Cries in the night

“...This isn’t so bad, huh, Dipper?” Mabel said at last.  “I mean, Great Uncle Stanford’s kinda weird, but hey, we’re both pretty weird too, right?  And his house has so much cool stuff in it!  I think we’re gonna like it here.”

“...Maybe.”  Dipper just lay down in the middle of the bed, and curled up with his back to her.

Mabel’s bright smile faded away, and she let out a small sigh.  Clearly Operation Stay-Cheerful-To-Keep-Dipper-Happy wasn’t working like she’d hoped it would.  But he didn’t want to talk either, and she was rapidly running out of ideas.

Hopefully things will be different here.

 

After a few minutes Tate returned, carrying a wooden tray that had a large loaf of bread, a knife, and two bowls of stew onboard, along with two wooden cups of water.  He set the tray on the floor between their beds, then straightened up.

“Put that on the dumbwaiter when you’re done.”

Mabel blinked.  “...The what?”

Tate paused.  “Oh.  Right.  Sorry.  C’mere and I’ll show you.”

Mabel looked over at Dipper to see if he wanted to see the dumb waiter (that didn’t seem like a very nice way to describe whoever that was) too, but he didn’t even look up, so she just followed Tate out to the foot of the stairs.

Tate gestured to a sort of wooden cupboard set in the wall with a crank next to it, and opened the door.  Inside, to her surprise, Mabel saw a lot of ropes, and a little wooden platform thingy.

“Just put the tray on that, and then turn the crank ta the right, and that’ll send it back downstairs.”

“Whoa, neat!” Mabel praised.

“Yup.  My dad designed it.”  A note of pride entered his voice as he spoke.  Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Turn it the other way ta bring the platform back up.  But either way, remember: turn it slowly .  Ya don’t wanna strain the ropes too much.”

Mabel nodded.  “Right is up, left is down, turn it slow or it all falls down.  Got it.”

Tate gave her an approving nod, and then headed for the stairs.

 

To her relief, when Mabel came back Dipper was sitting on the floor and using the knife to cut a couple of slices of bread.  She sat down across from him, and he passed her one of the slices, before picking up one of the bowls and getting started eating.  It was the first time he’d done so without being prompted in weeks.

It was a very good stew, with big juicy chunks of meat in it, and a bunch of vegetables that Mabel enjoyed more than she usually did.  Neither of them talked much, more absorbed in enjoying the meal.

When they finished, Mabel took the tray back to the dumbwaiter (why the heck did they call it that?) and turned the crank, watching with delight as the tray slowly disappeared into the darkness.  When it wouldn’t go any further, she saw, down at the bottom of the shaft, a flicker of light suddenly appear, before a pair of hands (she thought maybe they were Tate’s) reached in and grabbed the tray, and the light disappeared again.

So cool.

 

“So,” she asked when she returned to their room, “you wanna go explore the house?”

Dipper shook his head.  “Not right now, sorry.  I...kinda just wanna go to sleep.”

Part of Mabel wanted to drag him out of the room regardless, see if that would shake him out of his shell a little.  The brother she knew would have leaped at the chance to go check out all the weird stuff their great uncle (ugh, that was too long to say all the time-she’d have to figure out a way to shorten it) and his crazy friend had around here.

Instead, she sighed again.  “Okay.  Maybe tomorrow?”

“Yeah.  Maybe.”  And, barely taking the time to take off his shoes, vest and hat, Dipper crawled under the blankets and bundled himself up until he looked more like a caterpillar than a twelve-year-old boy.

It wasn’t that dark out, but Mabel changed into her nightdress and climbed into her own bed.

“Night, Dipper,” she said softly once she was settled under the covers.

“Night, Mabel.”

Before long they were both asleep.

---

***

---

The plague had passed through their town without mercy, seeming to have no set pattern in who it infected or who it spared.  Strong, healthy young people; weak, frail old people; children-anyone could catch the disease.  Not even the rabbi, the holiest man in town, managed to escape it.

Within days of its arrival Dipper and Mabel’s mother, father and grandfather were all dying, and even Mabel had developed some symptoms, but she’d been one of the lucky ones, and was able to fight them off.  Dipper suspected her spirit was simply too stubborn to let itself be taken away by the plague.

But not him.

For some reason, Dipper hadn’t gotten sick at all.

 

It felt like the world’s cruellest joke.  Compared to Mabel, he was always the one who got sick.  Heck, when they were first born he’d had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and it was only by the barest stroke of fortune that he’d managed to survive.  But now, when everyone else was dying in droves around him and his own sister was briefly ill, Dipper hadn’t been touched.

He didn’t know if it was a miracle or a sign that he was secretly a witch (like some of the people in town had whispered to each other when they thought he couldn’t hear) or something else altogether...but he hated it.

He and Mabel hadn’t even gotten to see their family’s bodies one last time before they were taken away, because the corpses could sometimes still spread disease.

But he kept getting this image in his head of what would have happened if they’d been allowed to see them: that his parents and grandfather would open their cold dead eyes, one by one, and slowly sit up and look at him, and ask, “Why didn’t you get sick instead of us?”

---

Dipper opened his eyes with a gasp, and tried to struggle his way out of the entangling sheets.

For a second he lay there in a state of disoriented bewilderment as he registered that this was not his bed, this was not his house, what had happened-

Then he remembered.

Traveling all the way to this little town, Gravity Falls.

Meeting their uncle, and his odd friend who created monsters out of metal.

This was his and Mabel’s home now.

Slowly he sat up, and put a hand over his racing heart, taking a few deep breaths, and (though he didn’t want to acknowledge it) scrubbing at his eyes with his other hand.

 

After a moment he glanced over at Mabel.

She was still peacefully asleep, snoring in fact, with one arm flung up over her forehead.

The sight helped him to relax, and ignore the ever-present sick feeling in his gut at least a little.

He was just lying down to try and go back to sleep, when his nerves were all set alight again by a horrifying noise.

A long, drawn-out roar that echoed from somewhere in the depths of the forest, and sounded like it came from something big.

Holy Moses, what was that?!

Dipper sat up again, and after a moment of indecision tiptoed over to the window and pushed it open, peering frantically out at the forest.

There was no sign of whatever had made the noise.  He wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse.

---

***

---

Ford was also awake, making a herculean attempt at organizing some of his research, because he tended to just end up tossing what he wrote down and whatever sketches he drew anywhere that was close enough.  Fiddleford kept telling him he should try putting them all in a book or something, but somehow he never could get around to doing it.

He jerked upright from where he was kneeling on the floor, gathering scattered papers, when he heard the noise, and glanced uneasily out the window at the moonlit landscape.

Mercifully, he didn’t have to hear that horrible roaring every night.  But whenever he did...it brought on another one of his headaches.

The front of his head would throb , and for just a moment a few indistinct images and sounds would float their way across his mind, disappearing before he could try to make sense of them.

It frustrated him to no end, not least because they always came with a feeling.

Like-like something terrible had happened, but he didn’t know what it was.

Ford clutched his forehead, massaging it with the tips of his fingers, until the pain receded enough for him to stand.

What had he been…?

Oh, yes.  The handful of papers clutched in his hand.

Ford carried them upstairs to his study, and placed them on his already-overflowing desk.

 

So far things with the children weren’t going too badly, he reflected as he began sorting them into piles of observations vs. sketches.  They seemed to have accepted his rules readily enough, and neither of them had been overly perturbed by his hands.  Mabel was more exuberant than he was expecting, while Dipper was far more reticent, but it wasn’t that odd, he supposed.  They just had different personalities, not unlike him and-

And-

His head ached again, and he had to stop and drink some water.

Ford forgot whatever it was he’d been thinking about, and lost himself in his work until he fell asleep from exhaustion.

---

In the morning, he was concerned to see that Dipper didn’t look like he had slept well; his eyes had dark bags underneath them, and his hair was sticking up all over like he’d been tossing and turning for most of the night.

Mabel, on the other hand, looked as fresh as a daisy, and beamed at Ford as he sat down at the table across from them.

“Good morning, Grunkle Ford!”

“Good morning, Mab-”  He stopped short.  “I beg your pardon?”

She bounced a little in her seat.  “I figure it’s easier than saying Great Uncle Stanford all the time.  Just take ‘great’ and ‘uncle’ and smush ‘em together-” she moved her hands together to demonstrate- “and Ford for short.”  Then her eyebrows did a little concerned frown.  “...Unless you prefer being called Stan, maybe?”

Ford shook his head.  “No-Ford is what I prefer to be called.  Thank you.”

The enormous smile returned.  “That settles it!  Grunkle Ford it is!”

Ford wondered why his heart was doing that funny thing in his chest.  It felt like a good thing.  Either way, though, the smile he offered her was less awkward or unsure than his previous ones had been.

Notes:

My conscience: Detective Jigsaw, why are you so mean to Dipper? Why did you make things so unnecessarily tragic for him in a story that's already pretty tragic?
My writer side, grinning evilly: Because it suited me, mwahahahahahahaha.

...Sometimes I worry about myself.

Chapter 3: A book of mystery

After breakfast was eaten and the dishes washed up, Fiddleford and Tate headed out to get back to work on the automaton...and Ford and the children ended up standing in the kitchen for a moment, staring awkwardly at each other.

Finally, Ford cleared his throat.

“Um.  I...I have some work to do.  Do you think you’ll be able to amuse yourselves for the day?”

To his equal parts horror and bewilderment, the children’s expressions became more than a little crestfallen.

What did I say?

As he was trying to figure it out, Mabel suddenly brightened.  “What kinda work are you doing?  Can we help?”

The possibility seemed to attract Dipper’s interest too.  “Yeah, I like researching and investigating stuff!  Back home-” his voice faltered for a second, but then raised its level of enthusiasm again- “we had a pile of tin cans that kept disappearing, and I managed to figure out all on my own that they were being eaten by this goat that belonged to one of our neighbors!”

“We were lucky he caught him-he was probably gonna start on our house next!” Mabel said dramatically.

 

And for a moment, Ford was tempted to allow the children to accompany him.  They both seemed like they were genuinely interested in what he was doing, and a cautiously optimistic part of him thought that perhaps he would enjoy their company while wandering into the woods to spy on the horde of feral Killbillies who had claimed a nearby glade as their territory-

His words caught up with his brain.

“...I don’t think it would be safe for you where I’m going.”

The earlier disappointment returned to their faces with a vengeance, and Ford nearly relented-but reminded himself firmly that he was their guardian now, and it was a guardian’s job to protect the children in their care.

“You can find Fiddleford or Tate if you need anything; I’ll be back for dinner.”  And he strode out of the room, snatching his long coat as he reached the front door (which contained a handy collection of papers, some charcoal pencils and a new kind of pen he’d invented that didn’t require an inkwell), and disappeared into the forest.

---

***

---

Mabel let out a frustrated huff once Grunkle Ford was gone.

So much for their opportunity to bond with their grunkle.

And Dipper had seemed a little more like his old self at the prospect of helping him out with whatever he was studying, so she was doubly disappointed.

But she just sighed, and put a comforting arm around Dipper’s shoulders.

“...Maybe we can go next time.”

To her relief, instead of pulling away he leaned against her and sighed too.  “Yeah.  Maybe.”

 

They ended up wandering around the house for the rest of the morning, seeing what it was like (and trying to make some sense of the house’s design-it seemed like it was bigger on the inside, for heaven’s sake, there were so many rooms).

Mabel suggested asking Grunkle Ford if they could help clean up the place whenever he got back, maybe organize some of the papers and things a little better-in fact she almost got started doing just that, until Dipper reminded her that he might not like it if she just started going through his stuff, and that they didn’t want him throwing them out just yet.

“He’s not gonna throw us out, Dipper, don’t be silly!”

...All the same, she decided to leave Grunkle Ford’s stuff alone until he got back.

 

When they got tired of exploring the house, they went outside to see the rest of the property.

They found McGucket and his son out by a smaller cabin about thirty feet away from the house, reattaching the head to the automaton, which was now lying on its side.  The old man waved to them cheerfully, before going back to pounding his blacksmith’s hammer against the now red-hot metal.

“He’s a lot stronger than he looks,” Mabel observed.

The house was surrounded by forest on all sides, except for at the front, where lay the path that would take them back towards town.  There was also a vegetable garden (which appeared to be neatly tended, so they assumed it was once again Tate’s work), and a well that had a curious metal-and-wood device covering it that connected to the side of the house (presumably another of Grunkle Ford and/or McGucket’s inventions).

All in all, not a very fancy place to live-but Mabel thought she could get used to it.

 

After some more searching they found an old ball lying by the side of the house, and started an impromptu game that mostly consisted of kicking it back and forth, trying to see who could get it the farthest and the highest.

To her delight, Dipper “woke up” again as they played.  He even smiled a few times when he got in a really good kick, and when Mabel tried to balance the ball on her foot and ended up falling on her rump he actually laughed (but not in a mean way, since he helped her up afterwards).

Unfortunately, without realizing it they had made their way right to the edge of the woods as they played, and the next time Mabel kicked the ball, Dipper was unable to catch it in time-and it went sailing over their heads, and disappeared between the trees.

 

For a moment the children stood there, staring with distress after the missing ball.

Then Mabel straightened her spine, and announced, “I’m gonna go find it,” and stepped over the property line into the trees.

Dipper let out a panicked yelp, and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back.  “Mabel!  Grunkle Ford said-”

“I’m not gonna go too far!”  Mabel pulled in the opposite direction.  “I just wanna get the ball back!”

Dipper looked incredibly unhappy...but finally sighed and followed her into the trees, picking up a large fallen branch and brandishing it in his hands like a club.

---

The ball had gone farther than they expected, so they ended up making their way out of sight of the house before Mabel finally spotted it, wedged between the upper branches of a big oak tree, with a hollow part in the center that looked kind of like a giant eye.

The whole time they were walking Dipper kept jerking his head from side to side nervously, and shifted his hands back and forth around the branch, like any second he expected something to jump out of nowhere and attack them.

“ Relax , bro-bro,” Mabel admonished, grabbing onto one of the lower branches and pulling herself up.  “What, you think something’s gonna eat us or something?”

“That’s how it happens in every story ever where people get overconfident and say something like, ‘Oh, let’s go into this haunted house, no way this could possibly go wrong,’” Dipper muttered.  Then he glanced up at her and bit his lip.  “...Besides, last night I-I kinda heard something out here.”

“Really?  Like what?”  Mabel finally reached the ball, and began prying it loose.

“...I dunno.  It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before.  But it was roaring, and-”

Dipper’s voice trailed off.

Mabel looked down, and saw that he’d put down the branch, and was looking at the tree trunk with puzzled curiosity.

“What the…?” he muttered, before stepping forward and reaching into the hollow part.

She scrambled down towards the ground, cradling the ball in one arm.

“What is it?” she asked, just in time for him to pull out, of all things...an old red book.

 

It was all tattered and beat up, and the back of the spine looked like it was just hanging on by a few threads, but that just kind of added to the coolness factor.

There was a gold symbol of some kind on the front, but it was so ripped up that Mabel couldn’t tell what it used to be.

“Whoa,” she marveled, examining the book.  “Wonder who left that in a tree?”

Dipper opened it gingerly.  “...There’s no name on the inside, so that’s no help.”

He turned the page, and found a picture of what looked like a bat, next to a sketch of some giant eyeballs.  “Whoa.  Both interesting and disgusting.”

He probably would have stood there all day, examining the contents of the book, had Mabel not tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey.  We should probably get back before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

Dipper blanched.  “Good idea.”

And together they hurried back towards the clearing where the house was, neither one noticing that the hollow in the tree now appeared to be watching them.

Notes:

Are tin cans somewhat anachronistic?
Maybe.
Am I concerned with this, considering how many other things in this story are anachronistic?
No, not especially.

Chapter 4: The benefits of tidy living

Notes:

In retrospect, I should have made the beginning of this chapter the end of the last chapter.
Oh well.

Thankfully they made it back to the house without incident, and without McGucket or his son appearing to have noticed they were gone, since they were still working on the automaton.  Quickly Dipper and Mabel went inside, and hurried upstairs with their prize.

Dipper sat down cross-legged on his bed, with the book resting in his lap, and opened it again, with Mabel leaning her chin on his shoulder so she could read it too.

 

To his disappointment, most of the writing was all faded, or the ink had run together, so he could only pick out the occasional word.  On the bright side, at least most of the artwork was still intact.

They flipped through the pages, marveling at all kinds of beautifully drawn images of fantastical creatures: something that looked like an owl with a cow’s face and an udder; a campfire with skinny legs and eyes; a strange duck-like creature with four legs and a plaid pattern on its coat.  Some of the drawings had been scratched out; Dipper wondered if whoever had made them was just very critical of their own art.

The person who this used to belong to was also kind of sloppy, especially as they came close to the middle of the book; some of the pages had red-brown stains splattered all over them, eugh.

And then, halfway through, the pages just...stopped.  There were just two final pages of writing, on one of which Dipper could make out one legible sentence, written in a hand that looked almost frantic: “ In Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust. ”

He stared at it, wide-eyed, and brushed his thumb against the words.

“...No one you can trust…” he murmured aloud.  And then the meaning behind the words sunk in a little.  “Mabel, do you know what this means?”

“That whoever wrote this was kind of paranoid?” Mabel suggested.

“No!”  Then he hesitated.  “Well, maybe.  But also that whoever wrote this was probably from around here!  Maybe we can find them and-I dunno-give this back?”  His voice trailed off as he realized how ridiculous that statement was, given the quality of the book and the fact that it had been stuffed in a tree for goodness-knows-how-long.

Mabel hummed thoughtfully-and then brightened.  “Hey, Grunkle Ford and Mr. McGucket are both pretty old-maybe they’ll know who the author is!”

“The author of what?”

 

The children jumped, and whirled around to see their elusive grunkle standing in the doorway of their room...looking a little like he’d been in a fight or something.

His ridiculously thick hair had leaves and twigs sticking out of it, and there was a long scratch down the side of one cheek which actually had a trickle of dried blood, part of which had gotten smeared on his spectacles.  His clothes were similarly torn up, with more red patches near the worst areas.

The twins both gaped at him.

“...Grunkle Ford, what happened ?” Mabel finally asked.

Ford blinked, and then looked down at himself in realization.  He gave them a sheepish smile.  “Um-I-well, I miscalculated the strength of some of the local wildlife’s sense of smell.  But don’t worry, I was able to eventually evade them, and ensure that they wouldn’t be able to track me here, so we should all be relatively safe.  As long as we don’t start hearing unexplained bluegrass music, there’s no need to fret.”

...Somehow this did not assuage the childrens’ concerns.

Ford seemed to realize that, as he coughed awkwardly and looked down towards the book in their hands.

“What do you have there?”

“We found this in the-” Dipper elbowed Mabel just in time- “yard.  It’s an old book of some kind.”

Dipper got up and held the book up for Ford to see.  “Have you ever seen someone with this before?  We think whoever wrote it must have lived around here once upon a time, and-”

His words came to a halt when he saw Ford’s expression.

It was that look again.  The blank one, only somehow worse than it had been the first time they saw it.

Ford abruptly brought a hand up to the side of his head, squeezing his eyes shut and uttering a small groan.

“Grunkle Ford?!”  Dipper dropped the book on the bed and hurried to his uncle’s side, putting a frantic hand on his arm.  Mabel went to his other side, pulling him over to her own bed and pushing until he sat down.

“Are you okay?  Do we need to get Tate?”  She took a worried glance at his head-maybe the cut was deeper than they’d realized, or he had a worse injury, they’d heard about people whose heads would get hurt and then they’d suddenly drop de-

Ford’s eyes opened again, and he blinked dazedly.

“I-I’m sorry, children.”  He gave them a somewhat confused smile.  “What were we talking about?”

 

Dipper’s heart sank.  He looked at Mabel worriedly over Ford’s shoulder, while his fingers tightened the smallest bit in his grunkle’s coat.  She looked equally disturbed by this memory lapse or whatever it was, but she just squeezed Ford’s arm.

“...Do you need help cleaning up?  You look like you got hurt real bad.”

Ford’s smile deepened into something a little warmer, and he gave her hand a reassuring pat.

“No, I-I’m all right, thank you.  I just need a bath.  It’s really not as bad as it looks.”  He got up, and before they could protest, strode back out of their room.

Dipper sighed, and his shoulders drooped again.

“Well, back to square one.”

Mabel squeezed his shoulder.  “Don’t worry, bro-bro.  I’ll help you figure out who the Author of this thing was if it’s the last thing I do!”

Dipper wasn’t sure why she was investing herself so deeply in helping him with this mystery...but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate the enthusiasm.

Not least because the new project was helping him not think about things he didn’t want to think about.

---

After about a week in Gravity Falls, Dipper had noticed a number of strange things about the people he and his sister were living with now.

 

1) Grunkle Ford and McGucket both seemed to have an extreme aversion to the color yellow, especially when it appeared unexpectedly.  On their third day here Mabel had come down wearing a hand-knitted sweater decorated to look like it was covered with buttercups, and Ford had seen her out of the corner of his eye and nearly shot her with his crossbow.  And as they were both trying to calm down McGucket came in for breakfast, and as soon as he saw Mabel he let out a high-pitched shriek and actually threw a wrench at her before registering who she was.  Both of them had apologized profusely, and clearly felt terrible about it, but ever since then both children had been careful to keep anything yellow out of their presence.

2) Grunkle Ford was not the only one with memory problems.  McGucket’s weren’t quite as bad, but if he wasn’t working on an automaton, then often he seemed to just forget whatever he was doing unless someone else reminded him.  Grunkle Ford mentioned offhandedly that his lapses had gotten a little better than they used to be, continuing his ongoing streak of providing information that he clearly meant to be reassuring yet made things just that bit more horrifying for the children.

3) Neither of them seemed to really have lives outside their work.  To be fair, Tate mentioned that they didn’t quite fit in with the townsfolk of Gravity Falls and felt it easier to have him be the main errand-runner whenever they needed food or tools, but Dipper and Mabel would have been okay with that, if it had instead meant getting to spend a little more time with them instead.  Instead, though, McGucket was always working out in his shed (usually with a lot of explosions involved), and Grunkle Ford was always either in the woods or in his study with the request that he not be disturbed, and only spent long amounts of time with them when Tate forced him to stop working and eat something for cripes’ sake.

 

The last one was the one that bugged Dipper most, but he honestly didn’t know how to address it without sounding childish or selfish.  Maybe he was just being unfair to them; after all, what they were doing was clearly important to them, and what did a dumb twelve-year-old like him know anyway?

So instead, he and Mabel would spend their time studying the journal (he’d concluded that was what it was, rather than a book, when he saw that some of the entries had dates scrawled nearby) for more clues about who it belonged to, in between helping Tate around the house; when they finally got the chance to ask Grunkle Ford if they could help tidy up his mess of papers he awkwardly conceded that maybe it would be an easier task if he had people helping him out, and Tate had been pleased that someone else was willing to try and keep things clean around here.

 

It turned out to be even more of a herculean task than they had expected.

Seemingly every room in the house had at least one scattering of Grunkle Ford’s work lying in a corner.  And not all the papers that were in the same place were relevant to each other, as if he had started writing about one topic, lost interest, and gone on to another, before moving to another part of the house and suddenly remembering the first thing he’d been thinking about.

So for their first few days, Dipper and Mabel had their work cut out for them just gathering everything together and putting it in Ford’s study.  Once they had done that, though, they were able to get started on sorting them more thoroughly.

This was even trickier, due to the endless number of topics Ford took an interest in studying, and the number of ways in which they overlapped and cross-referenced and sometimes got repeated or corrected by later papers-

Let’s just say that looking through them too long gave them headaches almost as bad as the ones Grunkle Ford always seemed to be getting.  Even if Dipper did enjoy seeing information about all the strange creatures that he seemed to be so invested in studying, many of which seemed too fantastic to be real.

 

And then, one afternoon while they were sorting through the latest stack, Dipper stopped short as he pulled a paper into view.

It had a drawing at the top of what looked like a castle.  Not anything really fancy, at least not compared to some of the castles he and Mabel had read about in books, but it still had turrets and the beginnings of a stone wall shaded in around it and looked all mysterious and cool.

Underneath it Ford had written, and then crossed out, the beginnings of a sentence: I think I remember being here once

Mabel looked over his shoulder.  “Whoa.  Grunkle Ford’s a really good artist.”

“I’ve seen this before.”

“Wait, what?”

Dipper pulled the journal from his vest pocket, and pulled it open, flipping to a page near the beginning.

Sure enough, there was a somewhat faded drawing of the exact same castle.

 

For a moment they stared at the two pages in stunned silence.

Then Dipper said determinedly, “We need to figure out where this place is.  Maybe then we can get some answers.”

“And maybe if we go there we can find a magical talisman to help Grunkle Ford and McGucket with their memories or something!” Mabel chimed in.

Dipper gave her a look.  “You’ve been reading too many fairy tales.”

Notes:

Fingers crossed, hoping this whole idea doesn't come off as completely nonsensical. In part because I stayed up way too late working on it out of determination to get the dad-blamed thing finished.
Yes, I know I deserve the rolled-up newspaper to the head.

Chapter 5: Secrets and pies

That afternoon, when Tate set off towards town, the kids hurried outside after him.

“Can we come with you?” Mabel asked eagerly.

Tate seemed surprised, but at last gave a little nod.  “If ya want.  Probably a good idea for both of you ta get outta the house anyway.”

Mabel beamed, and slipped one of her hands into his, skipping along at his side as they headed down the path towards the main part of Gravity Falls.

 

For a while they walked in silence, aside from the crunching of their shoes in the dirt.

And then, out of the blue, Tate asked, “So, how you two settlin’ in?”

It was the first time since they arrived that they’d been asked that question; both children were a little surprised.  Finally Dipper answered, “...We’re doing good.  Thanks.”

“Yeah, we’re glad Grunkle Ford agreed to let us stay with him,” Mabel agreed.  “This place is pretty cool.”

Tate nodded, and offered them one of his little half-smiles.  But then he asked, more seriously, something else that was even more unexpected: “How about what happened?  With your folks, I mean.  How’re you handling that?”

Dipper had managed to mostly avoid thinking about that all week, except late at night when he was having trouble sleeping; hearing it be mentioned aloud by an adult was kind of like a sucker-punch to the chest.  He was mortified to feel his eyes growing hot, and had to stop and blink the feeling back down.  He could see that Mabel looked equally shocked by the question.

“You don’t haveta talk about it if ya don’t want to,” Tate said with unusual gentleness.  “But if you decide you want to, and your uncle’s still got his head in his research so he doesn’t realize you want to, you can come talk to me.  Kay?”

Dipper felt a sudden rush of tight anger in his chest.  What did he know about something like this, huh?  What gave him the right to think he could-

“I lost my mom when I wasn’t much older than you,” the man’s voice interrupted his thoughts, as if he’d been reading them.  “Me and Dad-neither of us ever really recovered from it.”

...Oh.

Even though he hadn’t said what he’d been thinking aloud, Dipper looked up at Tate apologetically.  Tate just squeezed his shoulder, and the little group slowly resumed walking.

---

***

---

The town of Gravity Falls was just as small as Mabel remembered-everything looked more or less the same as it had been when they first arrived.  And, as they wandered into the main shopping area, they could see a lot of the same people they remembered out on the streets, selling their wares and saying good morning to each other.

“Howdy, Tate!” the baker hollered after him as they walked past his shop, “Out runnin’ errands for the wizards again?”

“Yup.  Just lookin’ for a place that sells eye of newt,” Tate muttered sarcastically.

The baker laughed, not in a very nice way, and went back to hocking his wares.

Tate glanced at the children, rubbing the back of his neck.  “There’s a reason why I try to grow as much of our own food as possible.”

Mabel gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze, and stuck her tongue out at the baker when he wasn’t looking.

 

“So, what do we need to buy?” Dipper asked.

“Dad needs more oil for the automaton, and I was gonna get some pie for dinner.”

Mabel blinked.  “Pie?”

“There’s one place left in town that’ll sell already-cooked meals to us at a decent price,” Tate said, pointing to a red building nearby.  “Lazy Susan’s tavern.  She makes the best pies in the world.”  He dug a few coins out of his pocket and handed them over to her.  “How about you go pick some up for me while I get the oil?  This should be enough to get us two big ones, so there’ll be enough for everyone.”

“Really?”  Mabel gave him one of her wide, crooked smiles.

Tate nodded.  “I’ll meet you both back in front of the store when I’m done.”

Mabel made a delighted squeaking noise, and then grabbed Dipper’s hand, towing him off towards the tavern.

 

The inside was louder, and more crowded, than they’d been expecting; everywhere they turned people were talking, yelling, eating and singing-often one or two of those things at once.

The children tentatively slipped around a table where two men were arm wrestling, and another one where one man was shoveling pancakes into his mouth while the one next to him cheered him on, until they reached the main counter, where a woman whose eye seemed to be permanently shut was wiping the top with a dish towel.

“Um, excuse us?” Dipper piped up as best he could above the noise.

The woman looked over the counter at them, and her face lit up in a bright smile.  The closer view allowed them to see that she had a name tag pinned to the front of her dress with “SUSAN” written on it in big block letters.

“Well, hello there, sweeties!  What can I do for you?”

They each climbed up onto a stool, and placed the money on the counter.

“Two big pies, please.  We got a reliable tip that you make the best kind in the world.”

Susan blushed, and waved a hand.  “Oh, I wouldn’t say they’re the best …”  Then she leaned in close.  “But if you wanna tell people that, I certainly won’t complain.”  She lifted up her drooping eyelid, and then lowered it again.  “Wink!”

Mabel giggled; she liked this lady’s style.

 

Susan accepted their coins and bustled off towards the back part of the kitchen; while she was gone, Dipper pulled out the journal and turned to the picture of the castle.  He looked around the room, examining the different patrons and (Mabel suspected) trying to decide if any of them was a suitable candidate for asking about it.  Whatever he saw didn’t seem to satisfy him, because his nose wrinkled and he muttered to himself in annoyance.

Susan suddenly returned, balancing two enormous , delicious-looking pies whose smell alone was like music to Mabel’s nose, before setting them down on the counter in front of them.  “What you got there, hun?” she asked Dipper curiously.

His expression brightened.  “Oh, um, just wondering-have you ever heard anything about there being an old castle around here somewhere?”

 

Susan’s smile abruptly faded, and she made a small gesture like she was warding off the evil eye.

The kids looked at each other, and then back at her worriedly.

“...What?”

Susan sighed, leaning an arm on the counter.  “There is a castle out in the woods somewhere, but trust me, hun, you don’t wanna go looking for it.”

“Why not?” Mabel asked.

“There’s all kindsa bad stories about that place.”  She looked down uncomfortably.  “They say that there’s people who’ve gone in to explore it, and never come out.  Or that it used to belong to an insane wizard who did something horrible to that nice Mr. Pines who lives just outside of town, and now he has trouble remembering things.”

The niece and nephew of that nice Mr. Pines naturally felt their curiosity increase.

Susan shook herself, and pushed a lock of silver hair out of her face.  “Either way, though, I don’t wanna hear about either of you going poking around looking for it, you hear me?”  She shook a long-nailed finger at them.  “You’re too young to be lost to such foolishness!”

Dipper smiled...but Mabel knew it wasn’t his sincere smile.

It was his “I’m definitely going to do that thing you just told me not to, but I’m going to smile and nod and pretend to agree with you so you won’t get upset with me” smile.

And despite the amount of danger they were probably going to get into, Mabel knew she was going to do the exact same thing.

There was a chance that going there would help Grunkle Ford with whatever was messing up his brain-and if nothing else, the thrill of the mystery was helping her get her brother back.

---

***

---

No, Dipper hadn’t forgotten about that creature he’d heard in the night, in case you were wondering.

It was kind of difficult to; there had been several nights when he was awakened by the sound of its cries echoing through the forest, and they never ceased to give him chills.

But, he mused as they headed back home after Tate came to collect them, he had only ever heard them at night, so perhaps the beast responsible for them was nocturnal.  If that was the case, as long as he and Mabel searched for the castle during the day, and got back to their grunkle’s house before dark, they would have (comparatively) nothing to worry about.

And as he continued to think about it through the rest of the day, he developed some ideas about how to make it work.

 

Taking a page from one of the more intelligent fairy tales, he and Mabel spent some time gathering the brightest, most colorful rocks and pebbles that they could find and putting them in a bag, in case they needed to make a trail they could follow later.

Then, once they had an ample supply, Dipper climbed onto the roof of the house, high above the treeline, and scanned the forest for some sign of where this supposed castle might be.

To his disappointment he couldn’t see any turrets or signs of a wall, which would have been a big help...but he was able to make out a path.

It was connected to the road they had rode on to get to town in the first place, and now that he was seeing it from this high angle, he remembered that he’d actually noticed it on the way here in the first place.

It was a tiny little thing that branched off of the main road into the trees, which even then had struck him as kind of odd.  And he remembered that there had been what looked like a broken-off signpost next to it.

It might be a bit of a long shot, but it was still a good place to start.

 

So the next morning, once Grunkle Ford had gone off to research and Tate and McGucket were distracted by working on their automaton, he and Mabel packed some leftover pie and a waterskin for lunch, and made their way down the road towards the mysterious path.

Oh yeah.

This was definitely a good plan.

Notes:

Seriously, Hansel and Gretel is one of the few classic fairy tales in which the characters actually act intelligently for the most part.
Find out they're going to be abandoned in the woods to die? Leave a trail of pebbles so they can find their way home.
Find out the woman they've been staying with is actually a cannibal? Take advantage of her poor eyesight using a chicken bone so she won't realize her plan to fatten Hansel up is working.
Realize Gretel is going to be pushed into the oven? Trick the witch into sticking her head in so she can get pushed in instead.
And these are CHILDREN, for crying out loud, but they're STILL more sensible than, say, the original Snow White, who keeps forgetting that she's not supposed to let anyone in the house while the dwarves are gone and gets poisoned three times in a row by the same person!

...This is a rant that could go on for ages if I don't cut myself off.

I know it might seem a little out of character for Dipper, of everyone in the Pines family, to be the one eagerly charging off into danger, but let us not forget who it was that went tearing off into the forest to catch an amazing attraction for the Shack armed with only a mace and chain, or who broke into a haunted convenience store just to impress a girl and her friends. Dipper can be quite the mad lad when he wants to be.

Chapter 6: Trespassers will be eaten

The children had to sneak past Susan’s tavern as they passed it, on the off chance that she might see them and ask awkward questions, but once that was done they hurried to the main path just outside Gravity Falls.

Once they got there, they wandered back down the path until they reached the spot where it branched off into the forest.

Unfortunately, there was no handy background music to tell them if this trail was safe or not.  Just that old, broken signpost, which some wiseacre had decided to tie an old boot to.

The trail itself didn’t even look particularly menacing, at least no more than the rest of the forest.  Whoever had written this story clearly had no concept of when to create a stereotypical dramatic atmosphere.

 

Mabel reached into her bag and pulled out a pebble, tossing it onto the ground in front of them.

“Whoa-no!”  Dipper stopped her from pulling out another one.  “We should save those for if we need to leave the path.  That’s when we’re actually gonna need them.”

Mabel blinked, and then smiled at him sheepishly.  “Oh.  Right.  Whoopsie.”

She pulled the bag a little more securely onto her shoulder, and then both of them, feeling butterflies of nervous excitement in their stomachs, set off down the path.

---

For what felt like an hour they wandered along, enjoying the way sunlight filtered through the trees and dappled the trail ahead of them, and the light breeze that rustled through their clothes and the ends of their hair.  Once Mabel even saw a deer and two fawns stepping through the underbrush, and had to cover her mouth to suppress a few squeals of excitement.  Dipper, without fully thinking about what he was doing, grabbed the journal and a pencil out of his vest pocket and tried to sketch them, but they moved away before he could finish.

They shared the pie when they got hungry, and agreed that even when it was cold, it really was the best pie they had ever eaten.

Despite his previous scorn for the idea, Dipper couldn’t help wondering if the castle, whenever they found it, would provide some kind of magical cure for Ford’s memory problems.  Fantasies flitted through his head of their grateful uncle, having his mind restored to normal, taking them out on adventures in the forest with him; spying on strange creatures together and drawing sketches of them; telling stories about him and their grandpa when they were young; all of them sitting in front of a bonfire, with McGucket and his son, and telling ghost stories by the light of the full moon-

“Dipper!”

 

It took him a moment to realize that Mabel had been saying his name, with increasing urgency, and tugging his sleeve.

It took him another moment to realize why she’d been doing this: there was a strange sound echoing through the trees.  Specifically, music.

Music that sounded a lot like one of the tunes McGucket had strummed on his banjo one evening when he was in a good mood.

Yes, I’m sure you all realize by now that it was the sound of bluegrass music.

 

“Where’s it coming from?” Dipper asked frantically, twisting his head back and forth.

“I can’t tell!”  Mabel pulled another rock out of her bag and wielded it threateningly over her head; she slowly stepped around until she and Dipper were back to back.

Dipper could feel his heart starting to pound in his ears, and his palms sweating even more than usual.

Grunkle Ford ran into whatever those were, and he barely escaped with his life!  And he’s a full-grown man with actual muscles!  What chance have we got against them?!

And then he let out a frightened squeak when a dark figure stepped out onto the path right in front of them.

 

In shape, it looked more or less like a poverty-stricken man-or kind of like McGucket, since it had on the same kind of big crooked hat and filthy overalls.  Though McGucket’s overalls were filthy because they were always covered in oil and grease and ash, and these were covered in...lots of dark red-brown stains that Dipper didn’t want to think about too hard.

Nobody in their right mind, though, would mistake this creature for a human.  It had tufts of dark fur sticking up along its arms and covering the tops of its bare feet, and its face was absolutely covered in the stuff.  The only features that could be clearly discerned were its big glowing eyes, and a wide mouth filled with long, sharp-looking teeth which was currently grinning at them.

After a second it let out a few deep hooting, grunting noises, and slapped its hands against its knees and elbows in an oddly rhythmic fashion.

Mabel gasped, and her back pressed against Dipper’s a little more tightly; he glanced behind them, and saw that another one of these things had stepped into view, blocking their escape from that direction.

...He would say that things couldn’t get much worse than this, but saying that was usually when the universe liked to prove you wrong.

 

“What are those?!” Mabel whispered.

“How do I know?!” Dipper hissed back.  “I’ve never seen things like this in my life!”

The hill man in front of him hooted again, and took a step forward, fingers twitching eagerly.  Saliva dripped from the ends of its fangs, and its long tongue snaked out and ran over them.

And then Mabel swung her arm.

There was a loud thunk , and the hill man behind them staggered backwards, clutching its forehead, as a pebble fell to the ground.

“RUN!!!!”

Mabel seized Dipper’s arm, and together they took off into the trees.

---

They could hear the angry hoots and grunts of the hill men coming after them, as well as the swift padding of their feet, moving with far more elegance and grace than they were capable of, as it was all they could do not to get tripped up by roots and branches.

Periodically Mabel would whirl around and hurl another pebble after them, accompanied by a defiant war cry every time she managed to land a good hit.  Unfortunately, the time she took to stop also meant that the creatures kept gaining on them, and Dipper knew their supply wouldn’t last forever.

Please please please we need some way to escape or hide, anything -

Up ahead, he saw a flash of red, and without really thinking about it was drawn towards it.

They dodged around a giant oak tree, and found themselves standing in front of the biggest, stoniest wall they had ever seen-and a little to the left of them, where the red had been, there was a cracked part-just barely big enough for an animal, or two small children, to slip through.

He didn’t hesitate; he just lunged for it, pulling Mabel with him.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but they both managed it.  Mabel dodged out of one hill man’s grasp just in time, and they both collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, as infuriated howls rang in the air behind them.

 

For several minutes the children just tried to get their breath back, and let their racing hearts settle.

Dipper rolled over onto his back, clutching his chest with one tiny hand.

“Well-” he wheezed out at last, “that was-more excitement-than I expected.  Maybe-we should-go home now.”  Assuming they could find the path again, or that the hill men or whatever they were had given up and gone away.

Mabel didn’t answer.

“...Mabel?”

He tilted his head to the side-and saw that she was sitting up, and staring at something with wide eyes.

“Dipper, look .”

He pushed himself up, and twisted around-and finally saw what she was seeing.

 

...It had to be the castle in the journal.

There was no way this forest was big enough to hide two hidden castles, right?

But it was not quite the same as the drawing-either version.

For one thing, the high stone sides and roof were overgrown with ivy, vines and all other types of plants, until it looked like it was being strangled by nature.

It was crumbling apart here and there, with parts of it actually lying on the ground in front of them.

It didn’t look as though it had been inhabited in years.

Dipper felt a little chill as he got to his feet, the better to examine the castle more closely.

“Dang…” Mabel whispered, standing up too.

A few seconds later, she shivered as a drop of rain landed on her nose.

 

Neither of them had noticed how gray the sky was getting, but they began to realize it now, as a crack of thunder rolled through the air.

There was nothing else for it: as dark and creepy-looking as this castle was, it was also the only source of shelter available to them right now.

The children hurried towards it.

They only paused a little bit when they saw that there had once been a set of impressive double doors at the entrance, but one of them had partially been ripped off its hinges and now the bottom half lay crumpled on the ground; they just slipped under the other half, barely in time to avoid the sudden downpour outside.

---

The inside hallway was not much better than the outside; the floor was covered in a scattering of dead leaves (at least that’s what Dipper hoped they were, it was a little too dark to see), and he ended up walking face first into a cluster of cobwebs that he had to spend a minute spitting out.

“Hold on.”  He heard Mabel rummaging around in her bag, and then there was a sssskritch noise before a tiny flame came into view.

Mabel quickly touched the match to a small stub of candle, and held it up to take a look around.

The room they’d come into was a lot bigger than they’d first realized, with a high, ridged ceiling, and up ahead there was a long, curved staircase covered in a decaying carpet.  Dipper’s eyes followed it upwards-and for a moment he thought he saw a figure standing at the top of the staircase, far too big to be a normal human.

He staggered back with a yelp-but when he looked again, there was nothing there.

“Dipper?!  What’s wrong?!” Mabel asked anxiously.

“N-nothing.  Just...my mind playing tricks on me.”  He smiled at her weakly.

Mabel squeezed Dipper’s shoulder, and then tilted the candle so the melting wax would run onto the floor, instead of on her hand.

“Well-” Dipper cleared his throat- “we came here looking for answers, so we might as well start searching.”

He tried not to tremble as thunder rumbled overhead again.

 

They slowly wandered, hand in hand, further into the depths of the castle.  The rest of the ground floor was just as big of a mess as the main hallway had been; Dipper’s nervousness was not improved by the sight of animal tracks here and there, or the remains of a clawed tapestry in one corner.

Do it for Grunkle Ford, he reminded himself.  He needs this.

The reminder gave him a small measure of extra courage, and as time passed and nothing bad happened it grew in confidence.

Despite that, none of the rooms they peeked in provided anything in the way of answers, mystical or otherwise, about what this place had to do with Grunkle Ford.  They were mostly empty, save for more leaves, dust and spiders.

Eventually, though, they found a room with an old, moth-eaten sofa, and a massive fireplace with some old chunks of wood in it.  Mabel used her candle to put together a little fire, and they sat down on the sofa to enjoy the warmth.

“...Some day, huh?” Mabel finally asked, taking a drink from their waterskin and passing it to him.

Dipper snorted and gulped down a bit for himself.  “No kidding.”

“But at least we finally found this place, right?”

“Yeah...but so far it seems like it’s a bust.”

Mabel sighed, and brushed some hair out of her face.  “Try looking in the journal again.”

“Good idea.”

Dipper pulled the book into view, and opened it-

-and couldn’t believe his eyes.

 

The page with the picture of the castle on it had changed: namely, the words written underneath it, which had been as faded and illegible as the rest of the book, were standing out clear and black.

 

My New Home

Father has begrudgingly permitted me to come here, and use this old castle as a place where I can pursue my studies in peace.  I’m sure that Mother is the one behind that, considering how much he wanted me to stay home and somehow help our family climb further up the social ladder, despite my expressed lack of interest in doing so.  And even she seems to think that it’s just a phase I’m going through that will eventually pass if they just indulge me a little.

No one in our family seems to care about what I want.  No one except

It’s not far from a quaint little village called Gravity Falls, where I can go if I need supplies.  However, I intend to be as self-sustaining as possible, so I can research the strange creatures of this forest undisturbed!  Perhaps I should try my hand at gardening…

 

Dipper gawked at the page in disbelief.

How was this possible?

“...Hey, wait a minute.”  Mabel looked down at the journal with a frown.  “Doesn’t that handwriting look a little like-”

And then the children received their second collective heart attack of the day, when a massive gray paw reached between them and snatched the journal from Dipper’s lap.

Dipper spun around-and his throat was too closed up with terror for him to even scream, at the sight of what was looming over them, hefting the book.

 

A deep, gravelly voice rumbled, perfectly accompanied by a flash of lightning from outside, “ This doesn’t belong ta you.”

Notes:

Hey, what do you know-looks like I know when to create a stereotypical dramatic atmosphere after all.

Chapter 7: Search and rescue (hopefully)

For Ford, the day began just like any other day.

Wake up at the crack of dawn, do some research until the children were awake and Tate called him down for breakfast, then head out into the woods to study the latest anomaly that had caught his interest.

He had to admit, researching had become a lot easier now that the children had finally made some headway in organizing his notes; he no longer had to try and remember what he had already written down or make a futile attempt to search every room in the house for it to double-check, he could just grab the pages that referred to a specific creature or group of creatures and take them along, adding little extra scribblings as needed.  He was even amused by Mabel’s habit of tying them together like parcels with pieces of multicolored yarn, or drawing little hearts around pictures of creatures she found particularly adorable (not very scientific, but he found himself oddly looking forward to seeing them).

 

Today Ford was watching a herd of cervitaurs, creatures that were half-man, half-deer, which were grazing and playing together in a nearby meadow.

He smiled as he watched two of the bucks raking their antlers together, clearly fighting for the attention of a nearby doe who seemed more interested in munching the leaves of a nearby tree.  Nearby, a nervous fawn, which oddly reminded him of Dipper, skipped back and forth on his hooves as he watched the battle; his little fists were clenched in excitement, and Ford wondered which of the bucks he was rooting for.

The fighting ended when the bucks noticed that the doe had wandered off to the other side of the meadow, and was grazing with a group of other does.  They both looked a little crestfallen, and sheepishly turned and knocked their heads together more affectionately this time, before sitting down side by side and starting to groom each other.

Some things are the same no matter what species you are.

 

He only decided to stop for the day when thunder began rumbling overhead, and the skittish deer folk began heading for the shelter of the trees.

Ford hurriedly stuffed the precious pages into the inside of his coat, turned up his collar, and began making his way home.

---

It occurred to him that he was going to be back earlier than usual; perhaps that meant he could actually contribute to the twins’ work in organizing his papers!  They’d been surprisingly efficient for twelve-year-olds, but he needed to figure out a better way to organize the cross-references-maybe some sort of filing system?  Maybe he ought to make copies of the notes that corresponded to two different anomalies, so then he could-

“DIPPER!  MABEL!”

Ford stopped short.

That was Tate’s voice.

Why on earth was Tate yelling at the children?  Had they done something-

“DIPPER!  MABEL!”

...That didn’t sound like angry yelling, actually.  It sounded more like he was calling for them, like-

A sudden cold feeling rushed down Ford’s spine, and he jogged the rest of the way to the house.

 

The first thing he saw was Fiddleford, rushing out of the forest and absentmindedly brushing a clump of leaves out of his beard.  When he saw Ford, he half-galloped to his side.

“Stanford!  Are the kids with ya?!”

The cold feeling grew.

“What-no, I-I haven’t seen them since this morning!  What are you-!”

Fiddleford turned white, and tugged the sides of his hat down over his ears, before doing a little nervous jig while standing in place.

“Oh banjo polish, this is bad !”

Tate came clumping out of the house, and when he saw them he rushed over.

“They’re not anywhere in the house-not even any of the crawlspaces.”

Ford’s stomach curdled with worry and horror-that quickly turned themselves into anger.

“Why didn’t you two keep a closer watch on them?!” he demanded.  “You’re both here all day anyway, you should have been making sure they didn’t go running off like this-”

Fiddleford shrank back, gibbering a little and tugging on the end of his beard-but Tate just turned red, and snarled back, “Maybe it’s because they’re not our responsibility!  They’re YOURS!”

 

Ford recoiled at the silent accusation.

For a moment they just stood there glaring at each other (as best he could tell, since Tate’s eyes were still hidden under his hat).

Then Tate turned away and muttered, “Let’s just go look for ‘em.  They can’t have gone far, maybe they just went down ta the village or something.”

He went stomping off, his boots leaving deep grooves in the earth as he marched.

Fiddleford put a tentative hand on Ford’s arm.

“...He didn’t mean that.  He’s jes’ worried ‘bout the kidlets, same as you.”

Ford didn’t answer, not even with the thought that crossed his mind: He’s not exactly wrong , though.

---

They decided to split up.  Tate would ask around in the village, since people were more likely to talk to him; Fiddleford would fire up his best-functioning automaton and search the forest behind the house; and Ford would head down to the road on the off chance that they had decided to go-

But where on earth would they have gone, if they’d decided to head that way?

A little part of Ford wondered if maybe they were homesick, and had decided to try and make it back to their old town.  If so, that seemed like an incredibly foolish idea; based on the letter he’d received, they wouldn’t exactly be welcomed back, even if they managed to survive such a long trip on their own.  Most of the people there were still picking up the pieces of their lives before the plague struck, and had no room to accommodate a pair of still-very-young children.  Their old house might not even be standing, or if it was, most likely someone else had claimed it for themselves by now.

But what if they did decide to go back?

Is it my fault?

Was I too neglectful?

Did I do something to upset them?

The possibility made a sick feeling rise in Ford’s stomach, and he decided that when he found the children, they were going to have a very long talk.

After he grounded them for the rest of their childhoods for frightening him like this.

 

Ford was about to head down the main road, since that seemed like the most logical route, when something bright caught his attention in the corner of his eye.

He twisted his head in that direction-and saw the side path.

Specifically, the large, shiny pebble lying there, where no such pebble had a right to be.

It felt like kind of a long shot, but Ford cautiously approached, and knelt to pick it up.

It was an average piece of granite, worn down by time and erosion until it was smooth and rounded at the sides, with a few flecks of mica that sparkled here and there.  It also had a slight spatter of bright blue paint along one side.

There was only one person Ford knew who seemed to be consistently covered in paint, or other crafty substances that seemed to smear everywhere no matter what, and his mouth went dry at the thought that she and her brother must have come this way.

Especially because it was getting colder, and starting to rain, and he was pretty sure this was a part of KillBilly territory-

Ford shoved the pebble into his pocket, and drew his crossbow as he rushed onto the trail.

 

He could feel the back of his head throbbing again, pounding in rhythm with his footsteps, but the fear over what might be happening to Dipper and Mabel, or what would happen if he didn’t find them in time (a hundred horrifying possibilities were running through his brain), outweighed the pain.

Ford kept his eyes peeled for any signs of blue (for Dipper) or extremely colorful (for Mabel) cloth, and occasionally he’d pause in his footsteps and call their names.

But he didn’t stop or turn back, not even when it began raining in earnest.

 

It rapidly became harder and harder for Ford to see, as rain splattered across his glasses and misted them up.  He just ran his fingers over them, or occasionally tried to wipe them on his soaked sweater, which wasn’t all that helpful but still better than nothing.  The problem was that as he ran, many times he thought he would see movement nearby, but more often than not it turned out to be just a droplet of water sliding down his lenses.

Other times it was just trees being pulled back and forth by the storm, or once even a flock of startled birds that had no idea how close they came to getting themselves shot when they burst into the air right in front of Ford.

A small voice in the back of his head attempted to point out that he was no good to the children when he was wandering around the forest practically blind, and a more prudent approach would be to turn back and find Fiddleford and Tate and tell them that he’d found where the children had gone so they could all search together.

The rest of him slammed the idea down on the grounds that he’d come too far to turn back now, and the children might not be able to afford that kind of time.

As intelligent and (probably) resourceful as he’d seen they were, in the brief amounts of time he’d spent with them, they were still just children who were unfamiliar with this part of the forest.

He needed to find them now .

And then, as he stomped through a particularly muddy part of the path, the toe of his boot kicked another pebble.

 

Ford knelt, and scooped it up, cleaning his glasses again with his other hand and squinting at it.

It was the same kind as he’d found earlier.

He couldn’t tell if there was any paint on it this time, but it was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

Ford got to his feet and scanned either side of the trail eagerly-and managed to lay eyes on another pebble, lying in the brush off to his left.

Bravo, children.  Clearly you know your fairy tales.  Even if you are now also grounded for straying from the path.

He stepped off the path to follow this new trail.

---

The pebbles were somewhat erratic in their frequency, but at least they gave him somewhere to go.

Ford barely noticed the way the pounding in his head was getting worse, or the way his thoughts were starting to fog around the edges, because at least the most important one was still in force: Find the children.  Dipper and Mabel are in danger.

He barely even noticed that some of his thoughts had been about how this place seemed vaguely...familiar.

At least until he found the wall.

 

When he stepped around a particularly large tree and laid eyes on it, the throbbing in Ford’s head reached a fever pitch, sending him to his knees with a hoarse cry as he clutched at his scalp.

It felt as though rocks were rolling around in his brain, smashing into each other with reckless abandon and threatening to break his head apart.  Never- never had it been this painful before, he had to-

Needed-

What had Ford been-

His thoughts felt as though they were covered in syrup, so he could barely get one of them to manifest freely for long before it was sucked back down into the goop.

He-he was out alone in the rain, letting himself get soaked as he knelt in the mud.

What was he doing out here?

Dazedly Ford got to his feet, picking up his crossbow with one hand and rubbing at his still aching forehead.

...He should go back home.  Tate and Fiddleford were probably worried about him, wondering what “that idjit” had gotten up to this time, they were going to give him an earful for wandering around in the woods all by himself during a storm.  And perhaps Dipper and Mabel were worried too-

 

Wait.

Dipper.  Mabel.

The headache began to shriek with life again, but this time Ford stubbornly pushed through it.

Dipper and Mabel were out here somewhere, that’s why he was here.  And he was pretty sure they were on the other side of this-

He forced himself to look, to ignore the agony.

This wall .

This oddly familiar stone wall.

He didn’t know how or why he recognized it, but he stepped towards it, even as his eyes watered with the pain, and followed it until he found a gate, which at some point had had something enormous smash into the top of it so that the metal was bent almost in half.

Ford reached out, with an effort, and put a hand on it, pulling until it moved just enough for him to stagger inside.

Immediately he was pitched to the ground again, and for one horrifying moment the inside of his head was so overwhelmed with pain that he was sure he was about to die-

---

 

 

 

And then, just like that, it stopped.

 

 

 

---

For a moment Ford lay there, trying to understand what had just happened, while rain pattered on the back of his head and back and wet grass brushed against his face.

Then he lifted himself back up on his arms, and took a look at the ruins of the castle standing before him.

There was a light of some kind flickering in one of the upper windows of the tower.

And he didn’t know how, but he knew that he knew this place too.

A determined glare settled on Ford’s face, and he got to his feet again, before marching towards the broken-down front door.

Notes:

I've worn glasses while out in the rain many times.
The struggle is real.

Chapter 8: Ford makes a deal with a monster (surprising: no one)

The entryway was bathed in shadows when Ford stepped inside.

Even less fortunately, he had yet again forgotten to bring matches with him, despite how often Fiddleford reminded him of that time when they’d gone exploring in an underground cave and been temporarily lost in the darkness.  After that, for the longest time Fiddleford had stuffed a matchbox into his coat pocket whenever he left the castle-

Ford blinked.

Wait.  Did-did I remember that correctly?

...It feels like I did.  But-how-surely I meant the house-

He didn’t push the thought away, exactly...but he put it to the back of his mind to focus on later.  

 

Ford took the opportunity to try cleaning his glasses again, as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

His sweater was still damp-and awfully cold, he was now realizing-but he managed to find a dry spot where it had been covered by his overcoat, and clean most of the water off his lenses before slipping them back on.

And immediately he let out a startled yell when something darted past his legs into the darkness.

Ford had even grabbed up his crossbow again and started to aim, before he realized that it was just a fox.

Interesting.  I wonder if it’s just here seeking shelter, or this is its home.

His eyes had adjusted enough for him to see the tip of its tail as it headed for the stairs, scrambling upward into the darkness.

Upwards, he realized, was where the light had been coming from.

Ford squared his shoulders and headed for the stairs.

 

They were very long and winding for the most part, and he had to step carefully because the mortar was no longer thick around some of the stones.  Also, every sound he heard made the shortest, least-floofy hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and all the different possibilities of creatures (living or otherwise) it could be had him wishing he’d brought one of his all-purpose monster defense packs.

Nervously he shouldered his crossbow again, as he at last stepped onto the floor he thought he’d seen the light burning on.  As best he could make out, there was a hallway before him, with a row of filthy doors on each side, some of which appeared to have been broken in.  When Ford saw it, that feeling rose up again-the one that said this was familiar to him somehow.  Except that this wasn’t right; there were supposed to be lamps set in the walls next to the doors, and they were supposed to be painted clean and white, with numbers on them for cataloguing-

His head pounded a little with a familiar headache, but it was weaker than it had ever been when he had one of these odd memory flashes before.  And this time, the memory didn’t disappear altogether, it just...faded a little.

Ford rubbed his temple, and decided to worry about what it all meant later.

“Dipper?  Mabel?  Are you up here?”

For a moment, there was no answer.

Then, just as he was turning to try the next flight of stairs, a familiar voice, sounding far more pitiful and frightened than he had ever heard it, called back, “G-Grunkle Ford?  Is that you?  Help!  We’re in here!”

---

Fiddleford had been right after all, Ford realized.  There was no sound in the world more terrifying than that of your child calling you for help.  It trumped “angry gremloblin awakening from a nap” and “nails on a chalkboard,” one hundred percent.

“Keep talking to me!” he called back, as he rushed into the hallway.  “It will be easier to find you if I can follow your voice!”  Then, with a flood of new worry at the realization that Mabel’s was the only voice he was hearing, “Where’s Dipper?!”

“He’s here!” Mabel reassured him, “He’s been trying to figure out a way to break the bars so we can escape out the window, but there’s no furniture in here, all we got is a few rugs and the fireplace, and he was thinking about trying to break it with a coal but he’d probably burn his hand if he tried, so he’s been trying to pry one of the stones out of the wall-”

Ford had finally found what seemed like the right door: it was the only one with a chain latch holding it shut from the outside.  That chill of terror came back with a vengeance, as he wondered who or what had been responsible for locking it.  Regardless, he quickly unhooked the latch and threw the door open.

 

As Mabel had said, the room was almost bare, save for a small fireplace which had an even smaller fire burning in it, and a pile of moth-eaten rugs which had been curled in front of it as a sort-of nest.

There were bars on the window, set in a gridlocked pattern that couldn’t be broken free easily, the better to keep...something in, Ford thought he sort-of remembered again.

And now, running towards him with expressions that were equal parts tear-stained and relieved, were the very children he’d been looking for.

This time both of them hurled themselves at him, burying their faces in his coat and clinging for dear life.  Without thinking about what he was doing Ford wrapped his arms around them just as tight.

It occurred to him that it was the first hug he’d received in...far too long.

 

Dipper was the first to pull back.

“We need to get out of here now!” he squeaked, voice cracking.  “He’s gonna come back any second, and he said he needed time to decide what to do with us!”

“Who?!” Ford demanded.  Instantly the fear returned-but this time it was joined by the burn of anger, at the realization that someone had been terrorizing and threatening his children.  Someone who, if he ran into them, was about to find out what happened if you went after-

“Ya lookin’ for me?”

---

In one fluid motion Ford spun around, crossbow raised and pointed at the hulking figure that was standing in the shadows.  All he could see of it was the faint gleam of its eyes, reflected in the firelight of the room behind them.

“Show yourself!” he demanded, putting his finger on the trigger.

“...And give ya a better target ta aim at?  Yeah, I don’t think so.”  The figure made no effort to step closer.

Ford clenched his jaw.  “You are in no position to be uncooperative!”

“Oh, and you are?”  There was a dark laugh that echoed through the corridor.  “Pretty sure I’m the one who’s got a right ta be upset that some yahoo’s breakin’ inta my house and threatenin’ me with a crossbow.”

“I’m here to rescue these children that you kidnapped !” Ford snapped.

“I didn’t kidnap jack!”  The figure made a sound that bore a disturbing resemblance to a snarl.  “I’m punishing a couple o’ trespassers who I caught wanderin’ on my property!”

“We told you, we didn’t know anyone lived here!” Mabel protested, peering around Ford.  “We just needed shelter from the storm, and-and we got attacked by some kind of crazy hill people-”

“KillBillies,” Ford corrected automatically, even as his stomach lurched with the thought that the children had been chased by those monstrosities.

“Oh, is that what they’re called?  We didn’t know.”  She turned back to their kidnapper-sorry, maybe hostage taker was more appropriate.  “And we were trying to escape them and wound up here by accident!  We weren’t trying to trespass!”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”  The figure gave an indifferent shrug.  “Either way, you came here and messed with my stuff, so now you gotta pay the price.”

“I think not.”  Ford stepped forward, aiming at the dark form.  He might not get in a fatal shot if he couldn’t see it properly, but it was so big that he at least wouldn’t be able to miss hitting something .  “I’m going to take the children and leave, right now, and if you try to stop us-”

And suddenly there was a shrill animal’s cry right under his feet, as he tripped over something that had been in his path and the crossbow fumbled right out of his hands.

He barely had time to register that it was that fox again, before it lunged forward and sank its teeth into his arm as he tried to grab the crossbow.  A second later an enormous, clawed foot had slammed down onto the weapon, both smashing it and pulling it back out of reach.

“Nice work,” the figure said.  It took Ford a moment to realize that he (possibly?  The voice was deep and gravelly enough to sound male) had been addressing the fox, which released his arm and sat back on its haunches with an oddly pleased expression.  But then his attention was drawn back to the creature...and as he looked up at it, his mouth dropped open in shock.

“...What are you?”

 

It was a valid question.

In all his years studying the forest that surrounded Gravity Falls and its unique inhabitants, Ford had never seen a creature like the one that was now standing close enough for him to get a good look.

It- he -was easily seven feet tall, and covered in long, thick gray fur, which upon closer inspection, as Ford slowly got to his feet, appeared to have darker gray stripes, like a tiger’s.  In fact, as a whole the beast looked like a large, bipedal tiger.  He had some tattered black strips of cloth that might once have been clothes draped here and there on his body, and was leaning one paw on a cane with a black knob on the top.  Behind him, an enormous tail swished back and forth a few inches above the floor.

Despite himself, Ford was fascinated.

 

The beast’s ears flattened against his head, and his eyes narrowed, as the beginnings of a growl rumbled in his chest.

“You sure know how ta make a guy feel special, huh.”

Ford barely heard the comment; he was too busy twisting his head from side to side, marveling at what he was seeing.

“You can obviously walk on your hind legs, but from the way they’re bent it seems like you can also be a quadruped if you want to!  Isn’t that interesting?”  His eyes landed on the paw gripping the cane.  “And your paws have opposable thumbs, even though from a scientific point of view there would be no need for such a step in your species’s evolution!  You’re a walking contradiction!”

The beast glanced at the children, who had hesitantly edged into the corridor behind Ford.  “Are his social skills always this good?”

Despite himself, Dipper shrugged and admitted, “Yeah, pretty much.”

That drew Ford’s attention back to business.

Right.  Children being threatened by beast.  Focus.

 

He cleared his throat awkwardly.  “...As interesting of a creature as you are, I’m afraid that I can’t just let you make these children your prisoners.”  Even though he was painfully aware that he no longer had the leverage to enforce this, having lost his weapon thanks to the treacherous vulpine still sitting at its master’s feet.

The beast snorted, and looked almost amused at his continued defiance.  “Hey, from where I’m standing I’m bein’ pretty merciful.  If it was me breakin’ into your house, you’d probably have half the countryside comin’ after me with torches and pitchforks already.  I was just gonna put ‘em ta work for a few months.”

...Put like that, it didn’t sound all that unreasonable.

All the same, he felt the need to correct, “I would not have half the countryside coming after you!  I would come after you all by myself!”

“Gee thanks, that makes me feel so much better.”

Before Ford could think of a suitable retort, the beast reached out one massive paw and grabbed him by the back of his coat, lifting him off the floor.  “Now, if we’ve got that all hashed out, you better say your goodbyes ta these two, and make ‘em quick.”

He turned Ford to face the children, both of whom were staring at him in horror-and, he realized, pleading. 

And he heard himself say, “Let me stay here with them.”

 

The beast froze.  “Wait, what?”

Ford’s mind raced.  “I can see we’re not going to change your mind about having them stay and work off their supposed-”

The beast growled, and he quickly backtracked.

“-their debt to you, so let me stay and help them with whatever it is you want done.  It’s an even better deal that way, because then you get three workers instead of just two.”

The beast rubbed his chin with the knob of his cane thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling (which the top of his head was close to brushing against anyway).  Then his eyes darted back to Ford.

“I dunno...that’d also mean having an extra mouth ta feed, and you’re not exactly a spring chicken-”

“Please!”  It galled Ford to beg, but he’d tried everything else.  “They’re my family!  They-” sudden, cold realization set in- “...they’re all I have left.”

 

To his surprise, something about that seemed to strike a chord with the beast.  He let out a soft exhale, and his eyes darted towards the floor uncertainly.

Then, at last, he let out a noise of disgust and dropped Ford to the floor.

“Fine, whatever.”  He started to turn away, before rounding on Ford again.  “But you better not try ta leave before I say, cuz I got all your scents now, and there’s nowhere you can run to that I won’t find you.  Ya got that?!”

Ford swallowed, and glanced at the children.  They looked more than a little freaked out by this whole situation, but they nodded at him bravely.  He turned back to the beast, and offered his hand.

“You have my word.”

The beast blinked, and then reached out and closed his paw around Ford’s hand, giving it a softer squeeze than he’d been expecting.  The tips of his claws pricked lightly at the skin at the back of his hand before the beast let go.

“Kitchen’s downstairs if you’re hungry.”

And with that he loped off towards the stairs, with the fox at his heels.

Notes:

Coming up next: our first look into Beast!Stan's POV.

Chapter 9: A new room, and a BFD

What the heck did I just agree to?!

As soon as he was out of earshot and eyeshot, on the top floor of the castle, the beast slumped back against the wall and ran his claws through his head fur and wondered at exactly what point he had completely lost his mind.

There are people in my castle!  And I just told them they gotta stay here!  Hot Belgian waffles, I shoulda just thrown the kids out and told ‘em never ta come back, this is getting out of control-

Except there really are KillBillies out there, and nobody deserves ta die like that.

...Well, except maybe one or two jerks I can think of.  But that’s not the point!

 

The beast decided that part of it was the old guy’s fault.

He didn’t know why, but something about him really got under his skin and made him feel even crankier than usual, and when he was cranky he was more likely to make dumb decisions.

He thought it was the way the geezer had just marched in here and started making demands at him; as well as he could remember, the beast had never liked people trying to tell him what to do.  Especially not ones who talked with that stupid superior tone of voice, or who thought they were better than him just cuz they were human and he wasn’t, grrrrr-

 

And yet.

And yet there’d been something oddly...refreshing, in how the old guy acted when he saw him for real.

The way he’d just stared at him with interest, instead of fear or disgust, and started spouting off a lot of lingo that the beast hadn’t been able to entirely follow, but sounded like a bunch of scientific stuff that was kinda-sorta like praise.

It reminded him of-

Of-

Okay, he didn’t know what , exactly, it reminded him of, but it was the same thing as when he saw the book those kids had been carrying around, which was now safely secured in his lair for him to take a look at later.  He didn’t know why he wanted it, or how he knew it didn’t belong to them, but he knew it had to do with something important.  Probably whatever it was that kept giving him headaches whenever he tried to think about it.

 

Also, it had been so long since he’d heard the sound of another voice besides his own...

 

Something tugged on his sleeve, and the beast finally realized that Wendy was trying to get his attention, probably had been for a while now.

The little fox tilted her head when he looked down at her, and gave him a somewhat reproachful stare.

The beast shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“Yeah, I know.  But what’d ya want me ta do?  I-If I’d thrown him out, he probably woulda just gathered up a mob or something and stormed the castle.  Seemed better ta just let him stay for now.”

Wendy tilted her head, and her green eyes crinkled in her best imitation of a knowing smile.

“Wipe that look off your face,” the beast growled.  “I know what you’re thinkin’, and it’s not like that!  I am not getting soft!”

Wendy dipped her nose down in pretend contrition; he just flicked the end of it with the tips of his claws and then got to his feet.

“C’mon, let’s see if there’s any rooms we can stick ‘em in.  An’ we better do it quickly, before Soos finds out we got guests-”

Down below, they heard a loud “ROOOO!!!!” followed by startled yells, and a loud thud.

The beast groaned into his paw.

“Too late.”

---

***

---

After the beast left, Dipper and Mabel instantly latched on to Ford, grabbing his hands like they were much younger children.  Even Dipper was too anxious for some kind of security in this new and scary situation to be embarrassed about his clinginess.

“Grunkle Ford, did you just make a deal with a monster?” he asked when he found his voice.

Ford looked down at him in surprise.  “...Yes, I suppose I did.”  His hand curled a little more securely around Dipper’s.

“...Is it bad that I kind of wanna pet him?” Mabel asked, looking in the direction that the beast had gone.

The other two stared at her.

“I...would not advise it,” Ford said at last.  “Something tells me that he would not appreciate it.”

She pouted.  “But he’s so fluffy !”

“He also has fangs that look like they could rip your arm off in one bite,” Dipper felt obligated to point out.

“Ugh, fine .  I’ll see if I can pet the fox instead the next time I see it.”

 

Ford changed the subject.  “Why did you two wander out here in the first place?  Especially when I told you not to go into the forest alone?”

Dipper flinched guiltily.  He’d...been kind of hoping Ford wouldn’t remember that.

Mabel was less intimidated by getting in trouble.  “We found a picture of this place in your notes, and in an old book we found, and thought maybe if we came here we could find out why your memory’s all messed up and fix it!”

“Mabel!” Dipper hissed.

She blushed, realizing that might not have been the most tactful way of putting it.  “Um.  I just-you know.”

Ford flinched, and stared down at his muddy boots.  “Yes, I...I’m aware that I am somewhat...deficient in that area.”

Mabel wrapped both her tiny hands around his.  “You’re not deficient, Grunkle Ford, don’t say that!”

Ford didn’t look like he believed her, but he gave her a weak smile, and squeezed her fingers wordlessly.

 

Then his eyes widened.

“Wait.  Old book-you mean that red one you tried to show me?”

Dipper felt his heartbeat pick up.  “You remember it now?”

“I-I do!”  Ford stared down at them with excitement rising in his face.  “I-I think it’s-it’s-”  He struggled for words.

“It had stuff in your handwriting,” Mabel said helpfully.

Ford’s whole face scrunched up, like he was trying his hardest to remember.  At last, though, he let out a frustrated sigh.

“I need to see it.  Where is it?”

Dipper deflated.  “...The beast took it when he caught us.  I dunno where it is.”

At once the expression changed from frustrated and confused to very determined.  “Well, I think he’s about to give it back.  If he knows what’s good for him, that is.”

And he released their hands, clearly about to go track the beast down and demand the journal’s return, come hell or high water-but before he could, a new absolutely enormous creature came clambering up the stairs.

---

It wasn’t the beast.  Unlike him, it was walking on all fours, and its fur looked darker than his silvery gray.  But that was the most they could see of it at this point.

As it reached the top of the stairwell, it froze, and lifted its head, clearly staring straight at them-then, without hesitation, it lunged forward with a loud roar, jumping up onto its hind legs and clamping massive paws down on Ford’s shoulders before he could escape, which knocked him flat on his back-

And then it proceeded to cover his face in copious amounts of slobber.

Dipper screamed in alarm-until he realized that a) the creature wasn’t harming Grunkle Ford, just licking him senseless, and b) it was a big brown dog, whose only threat level seemed to be that they were in danger of being knocked flat by how wildly its massive tail was wagging.  He couldn’t help laughing in sheer disbelief, that after all the fierce and terrifying things they’d had to encounter today, now they were dealing with...this.

“Dipper-bleagh-Mabel-”  Ford spluttered, and pushed ineffectively at the dog while trying to keep any of its tongue secretions from getting in his mouth- “could one of you please-ugh-get it off-”

“SOOS!”

 

A massive gray claw reached down and grabbed the dog, lifting him into the air as easily as scruffing a puppy.

The beast gave the dog (Soos, was it?  Interesting name choice) a stern glare.  “What have I told you ‘bout jumping up on people?”

Soos whined pitifully.

“I know you’re excited.  But you’re not a puppy anymore, you’re gonna hurt someone doin’ that.  Kay?”

Soos opened his mouth, and licked the beast’s cheek.  He rolled his eyes and batted him away.

“Yeah, yeah, knock it off, ya slobberin’ mutt.”  He lowered his arm and set the dog down, picking up the lantern he’d brought up afterwards.  Then he took one look at Ford, and immediately cracked up laughing.

It was admittedly not difficult to understand why: his hair was sticking straight up on two sides, his spectacles had been knocked askew, and his entire face and neck were damp, making him look like he had gone back out into the storm and run into a tree or something.  Even Dipper found himself having to put a hand over his mouth when he got a good look at his uncle.

 

Ford slowly got to his feet, rubbing the back of his head and trying (unsuccessfully) to recapture what remained of his dignity.  He glared at the dog, whose tail drooped.

At that moment the fox returned, and uttered a short yap.  The beast looked at it, and it gestured with its nose towards the upstairs.

“We found a room for ya.  C’mon.”  The beast gestured for them to follow him.

Dipper blinked.  “Wha-you’re not gonna keep us in there?”  He indicated the room they’d been shut in.

The beast looked down at him.  “You wanna stay in there?”

“Well-no, but-”

“Then what’re you complainin’ about?”  He turned away again.

The three humans looked at each other, and then hesitantly followed him.

---

“How do you know what your animals are saying?” Mabel asked as they climbed the stairs.  Then she let out a delighted gasp.  “Can you understand their language or something?!”

The beast snorted.  “Do I look like a fairy tale princess?  Soos and Wendy’ve just been around long enough for me ta know what they wanna say.”

“Oh.”  She looked disappointed.

Soos, who was padding at her side, let out a small whine and nuzzled his head against her shoulder until she smiled and patted him.

When they reached the top of the stairs, the fox (Dipper was going to assume that was who the beast meant by Wendy-and therefore he was going to go out on a limb and say that it was a girl) trotted over to a door and pushed it open with her paw.  The beast peered inside, and nodded his approval; he turned back to them and made a gesture.

“Here ya go: home sweet home.”

 

Cautiously the little family peered inside.

There was a large bed covered with a thick red quilt against one wall, and a few other pieces of furniture set up here and there that looked elegant, but dusty, and a curtained-off space in one corner that was probably a bathroom or something.  On the whole, it was a once-very opulent room that had been left unused for a very long time, like a room on display in a museum, but might have the capacity to be comfortable.

“...It’s nicer than where we were,” Dipper admitted, before abruptly sneezing as some of the dust got in his nose.

The beast snorted with amusement.  “That’s seriously your sneeze, kid?”

“I know!” Mabel cooed.  “He sounds like a kitten!”

Dipper glared at her, and rubbed his nose.

 

Ford, clearly seeing this as a window of opportunity, turned towards the beast.

“The children told me that you have-”

But the beast had already turned and casually smashed down the door of the room next to them, disappearing inside; they heard him rummaging around in there for a moment, before he reappeared carrying something rolled up and red, which he tossed at Ford.

“Here.”

Ford unrolled it, and found to his surprise that it was a long red nightshirt.

“...What…?”

“Figured it might be nicer than sleeping in wet clothes,” the beast said, turning back towards the stairs.  “There’s other clothes in there if ya wanna try ‘em out, but if ya want anything in the latest fashion I’ll probably haveta steal it.”

Did he just say…?

As Dipper was trying to sort that out, Mabel let out a sudden horrified gasp.

“Oh no!  Mr. McGucket and Tate!  They’re probably worried sick about us!”

 

Dipper realized, with a twinge of guilt, that he had completely forgotten about that possibility, and that it was more than likely true.

“Mr. Beast!”  Mabel ran after the beast before he could leave, grabbing onto his sleeve, “we have friends that we live with who probably have no idea where we are!”

“Not my problem,” the beast growled, pulling out of her grasp.  “We still have a deal-”

“I just wanna send them a message to let them know we’re okay!”  She made her eyes go big, and clasped her hands together under her chin.  “Pleeeeease?”

The beast hesitated, and then groaned.  “ Fine .  I’ll see if we’ve got any paper lying around-”

“No need.”  Ford reached into his pocket and produced some of the papers he used for his research, along with his pen, and leaned against the wall so he would have a flat surface to write on.

“Just no givin’ ‘em directions where ta find you,” the beast growled.

Ford sighed.  “Of course not.”

---

Since he only had one piece of paper that was blank on one side (the other was covered in notes about the cervitaur herd he’d been studying that morning), and he had to restart a few times as he tried to figure out how to explain the situation, the message was forced to be somewhat concise:

 

Dear Fiddleford and Tate,

 

I found Dipper and Mabel.

Unfortunately we are now in indentured servitude to a beast, and don’t know when we’ll be back.  However, we are all alive and well, and he seems to have no intention of hurting us.

I will try and figure out a way to get further messages to you as time permits.

 

-Stanford

 

Dipper and Mabel signed their names too; Mabel added, WE LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU! in big capital letters, and surrounded the words with hearts, before they allowed the beast to see.

He gave a small grunt of approval.

“So, where do your friends live?”

Ford (somewhat reluctantly) gave directions, and the beast turned to Wendy.

“Ya get all that?”

The fox nodded, and he held out the note to her; a second later she took it in her mouth, and ran off down the stairs.

---

***

---

“Welp, looks like that’s all taken care of!  See ya in the morning, or whatever.”

And the beast lumbered away, leaving the lantern (and Soos) behind.

Ford nearly went after him to demand the book back again...but instead, he found himself turning to look at the children.

They both looked...exhausted.

He wasn’t sure if it was more physical or emotional, but either way, it didn’t seem like they’d appreciate being left alone right now.  So instead he picked up the lantern, and with a small sigh headed into their new room.  The children followed, and Soos padded along behind them, before flopping down in the doorway with a somewhat dramatic sigh.

 

Ford felt a little silly when he’d put on the voluminous nightshirt, but he had to admit it was nice to be in something warm and dry.

The children’s clothes hadn’t gotten as damp as his, but they found a couple of long men’s shirts in the other room that they changed into.

After they were all dressed, Ford helped the children take the covers off the bed and shake them out in the main corridor, to get rid of the worst of the dust.  Dipper let out a few more (admittedly quite humorous-sounding) sneezes as they did so, and both Mabel and Ford got quite a bit of dust up their noses as well (their sneezes were not quite as kitten-like).

Once that was done, they remade the bed, and then, not sure of what else to do, got into it.  It was a little awkward, considering that they were all used to having beds to themselves, but though nobody said it, none of them felt comfortable separating.

Dipper and Mabel lay on either side of Ford, curling their fingers into the material of the nightshirt.  Even though they were all comfortably burrowed under the blankets, he could feel them trembling against him.

Hesitantly, hoping it was the right action to take, he wrapped an arm around first Mabel, then Dipper, and gave them each a gentle squeeze.

He wanted to promise that things were going to be okay, since he was pretty sure that was what you told frightened children in situations like this...but the fact was, he wasn’t sure they would, and he had never been very good at lying.  So all he said, in a soft whisper, was, “Go to sleep, children.”

And he waited until he heard their breathing even out on either side of him before he let his own eyes close.

---

Once they were all asleep, Soos got up from his spot on the floor and hopped up onto the bed so he could stretch out across their legs.

Notes:

I'm imagining Soos as being something between a St. Bernard and a golden retriever.
Or whatever Alexander from Full Metal Alchemist was.

Chapter 10: Trouble brewing

Ford was striding down a long corridor in the castle, the back of his long coat trailing behind him in a very dashing, impressive fashion.

To his surprise, it was clean, at least comparatively so; granted, it had been a while since anyone had taken a broom to the floor, but at least there were no dead leaves or spiderwebs anywhere, and there was a clean blue carpet laid out in front of him, and one or two tapestries decorating the walls.  Lanterns hung from braziers every few feet, but he and Fiddleford had been working on a new invention that would create a more consistent light source, and planned on setting it up throughout the castle.

The experiment had been going very well; he was certain that he just needed to give it another try.

Up ahead of him, at the end of the corridor, was a large door: his intended destination.

It was unique among the doors in the castle; unlike the rest of them, it was made of iron.  There was also a peculiar design on the front, like an upside-down triangle with a large, pale blue hole in the middle.

Ford grinned in anticipation as he reached it, and extended a hand towards the doorknob-

 

-and nearly jumped out of his skin when a horrible screaming noise assaulted his ears, shocking him into wakefulness amidst a flurry of tangled limbs and alarmed cries from all sides.

It took him a bewildered moment to remember where he was, and what had happened the day before, followed by realizing that the pressures at his sides were the children, while the heavy weight that had made his legs fall asleep was that dog who had knocked him to the floor yesterday, who had apparently decided that he hadn’t made Ford’s life hard enough.

He sat up anxiously, trying to determine the source of the new, unfamiliar noise and whether it was a threat that he’d have to fight-and then did a double take as he registered the bird standing in the window.

It was very large, pale white, and had several impressively long tailfeathers.

As soon as it saw him watching, it raised its head and let out that high squawk again.

“Whoa,” Mabel said at last, rubbing at her eyes, “Check out the funny chicken!”

 

The bird let out a slightly-less-piercing noise that almost sounded shocked, or even offended, and did a little agitated dance back and forth that made its talons clatter on the windowsill.

Part of Ford wondered how it had managed to get the window open from the outside, even as he pulled his glasses on to take a better look at it.

“That’s not a chicken, Mabel.  It’s a very unique specimen of white peacock.  Though-” he tilted his head thoughtfully- “come to think of it, it might actually be a pea hen .  It lacks the wide crest of tailfeathers that the males are known for.”

The peahen’s head dipped up and down, almost like she was nodding.  Then she turned on her heel and hopped back out the window, evidently satisfied that she had completed her mission in waking them up.

“Just how many animals live here?” Dipper asked in bewilderment.

---

As it turned out, when they had dressed and made their way downstairs the answer was, ‘at least one more.’

When they found the kitchen, there was a large, old-looking gray cat lying curled up next to the stove, who opened its eyes and greeted them with a soft, whispery “mrow.”

Soos, who had accompanied them, immediately wandered over and licked her cheek in greeting; she patted his nose with her paw in a way that seemed almost affectionate, before getting onto her hind legs and proceeding to wash his ears.

...Ford was really starting to suspect that these were enchanted animals of some kind.

 

He wasn’t sure whether to be more relieved or perturbed that the kitchen was the cleanest part of the house.

Even though the floor was still pretty dusty, the table and countertops looked as though they had been recently scrubbed, and there was a large platter on the table adorned with a loaf of bread, some butter and honey, and a jug of water.  There was no sign of the beast, but his pawprints in the dust showed that he had been here recently.

Mabel didn’t hesitate; she just went over to the table and ripped a hunk off the loaf, before she began generously smearing it with honey.

“Mabel, wait!”  Ford held out a hand to stop her.

“Why?  I’m starving !” she protested.

It occurred to Ford that this was the first meal any of them would have had in around half a day; his stomach inadvertently grumbled.

“...All the same, we should be a little careful,” he said, even as he pulled up a chair and sat down.  And almost jumped out of his skin for the second time that day when a voice behind him rumbled, “Oh please , if I wanted ta kill ya, I wouldn’t waste time with poison.”

 

The beast grinned toothily as he stepped into the kitchen; everyone started to get up, but he waved a paw at them until they sat down again.

“You can get started whenever ya get enough ta eat.”

Taking that as her cue, Mabel started eating, and after a more hesitant second Dipper followed suit.

Ford’s eyes narrowed, but at last he took a small slice of bread for himself, adding a spread of butter on top.

---

For a while everyone ate in more or less silence, while the beast leaned against his cane and watched them, looking lost in thought.

Once the last crumbs of bread had been devoured, he scratched the fur behind his ear and started opening his mouth to speak-but before he could, Mabel turned to him and smiled brightly.

“I just realized, we haven’t introduced ourselves yet!  I’m Mabel, this is my brother Dipper and our Grunkle Ford!”

The beast wrinkled his nose.  “...Grunkle?  What’s that, some kinda chieftain title?”

Mabel giggled.  “No, it’s just short for ‘great uncle’!”  She bounced a little in her seat.  “What’s your name?”

The beast looked oddly taken aback for a second, before his eyes darted towards the floor.

“...Don’t have one.”

“What?!”

“Monsters don’t have names, kid.”

“That’s not true,” Ford felt obligated to point out.  “There’s plenty of myths about creatures with names, like Scylla and Charybdis, or Jenny Greenteeth, or-”

“Well, this one doesn’t have one,” the beast growled, shooting him an irritated glare.

“We need to call you something !” Mabel protested.  “Something that’s better than Mr. Beast.”

He rolled his eyes, and finally muttered, “Just pick something, I don’t care.”

“Okay, your new name is...Fluffy Snuzzleface!”

 

Dipper cracked up laughing, and even Ford couldn’t help chuckling at the beast’s facial expression.  He could tell, without even asking, that he was contemplating a future of being referred to as Fluffy Snuzzleface.

After a second he said, “Okay, you are no longer on the naming committee.”

“Oh, come on!  That’s a beautiful name!”

“No, it’s stupid.”

Mabel looked a little hurt, but the beast didn’t appear to notice.  He was busy scratching his head again, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.  At last he said, “...Soledad.”

“Huh?”

“That’s a name I can live with.  Soledad.”

Mabel wrinkled her nose.  “Sounds kinda foreign.”

“That’s cuz it is.”  And the newly christened Soledad headed for the door, gesturing for them to follow him.

---

***

---

In the main entryway they found a pile of mops, brooms, buckets, dusters, rakes, and other cleaning supplies.

“Where did you get these?” Ford asked curiously.

Soledad shrugged.  “Eh, you know-found ‘em lyin’ around.”

 

(Meanwhile, in the village of Gravity Falls, several people woke up to find that various cleaning supplies had gone missing, and in their places were a few pieces of wood that had been roughly carved into the shape of coins.  On one side there was a messy etching of... something vaguely animal-shaped , and on the other side there were words, looking like they’d been written by someone who had never tried their hand at woodcarving before: “Beast Euros!  It’s money!”)

 

 

Dipper saw Ford’s eyes narrow a little, but he didn’t speak; he just folded his arms.

“So,” Soledad said, “for your first job I want you three ta make this whole castle spotless , however many days that takes.  Sweep, mop, whatever it takes ta get all the gunk out.  Cuz after that, the real work begins!”

Dipper tilted his head.  “ What real work?”

“Well, this place is a creepy castle out in the middle of the woods that a lotta folks are scared of, right?”

Mabel nodded.  “Uh-huh.  There’s lots of rumors about it in the village that we heard before we came here.”

...Granted, those rumors had all come from one person, and it was just the one time, but Dipper supposed that the point still stood.

Soledad grinned, and rubbed his paws together.  “And yet you little gremlins came here anyway.  I think you’re not the only ones who’d do that if ya had the chance, especially if ya thought there was somethin’ here worth lookin’ at.”

“What are you getting at?” Dipper asked.

The beast raised his arms dramatically into the air, twirling his cane.  “I’m gonna turn this whole place into an attraction!”

 

“The thing you gotta understand about people is, as much as they claim ta hate weird, creepy stuff like monsters and old castles, they’re also really into the thrill of it.  That’s why they like tellin’ ghost stories, and why teenagers sometimes come here and dare each other to try and knock on the front door or whatever.”

As if on cue, the one side of the door that was still hanging abruptly fell off its hinges.  Soledad glanced at it.

“You gotta fix that, too.”

He spun back to face them.

“So, I bet if we offered folks a chance ta come here, see a real haunted castle and all the weird stuff it has inside-not ta mention the real live, terrifying beast -they would be more’n happy ta pay for a chance ta do so!”

It was a pretty crazy idea...but the way he talked about it, using that big theatrical voice of his...Dipper couldn’t help thinking that it was just crazy enough to work.

 

Wait a minute.

“What kind of stuff are you thinking about showing people?”

Soledad shrugged.  “Eh, sure I can put together some weird taxidermy, maybe a few fake gold necklaces I can pass off as ‘cursed amulets’.”  He cackled at the idea.  “You wouldn’t believe the kinda stuff people can be suckered into believing!  And hey, it might also get the occasional angry mobs off my back-”

“I can’t believe you.”

 

Dipper looked at Ford in confusion-which turned into shock at the sheer rage burning in his grunkle’s eyes.

Ford marched towards the beast, fists clenched at his sides and appearing to have completely forgotten that he was facing down a seven-foot tiger.

“You-you would take advantage of other people’s curiosity, just for profit ?!”

Soledad tilted his head...and then nodded.

“Yeah, I think I would.”

“That-that is the absolute lowest form of-how can you-!”  Ford was apparently too angry to even form a coherent sentence.  At last he spluttered, “What do you even need money for?!  You’re a monster who lives all alone in a broken-down castle, what would you even spend it on?!”

Dipper winced at the way the beast’s ears flattened, and the fur on the back of his neck began to rise.  “Gee, I’d almost forgot, thanks for reminding me!” he growled back.  “And what I choose ta do with it is my business, not yours!”

“It is my business when you’re planning to make a mockery of my entire field of work!  I go out of my way to study real anomalous creatures, and actually learn things, and you-you’re planning on doing the exact opposite!  I can’t let you-!”

A large claw grabbed the front of his shirt, lifting him until they were eye to eye.

“Look, marshmallow head.”  Soledad’s voice had lowered to a deep, rumbling snarl that made the hair on Dipper’s arms stand on end.  “Last I checked, this wasn’t your decision to make.  This is my castle, and my rules, and I’ll do whatever I want with it!  And you don’t haveta like it, but we made a deal , so you can just shut.  Your.  Yap!”

The last word was accompanied by a flash of his fangs that had Ford flinching back, before the beast half-lowered, half-dropped him to the floor, and then stormed off into the depths of the castle.

Ford turned away, and with a frustrated noise ended up kicking the remains of an old chair lying on the floor nearby into splinters.

 

Dipper and Mabel flinched away, instinctively grabbing onto each other.

They gave each other nervous looks, and after a second decided it would be best to make themselves scarce.

They both grabbed brooms from the pile, and made their way upstairs to get started working.

---

***

---

Well, well, well!

Looks like the gang’s all here-and with a couple of new faces in the crowd too!

This could be a bit of a game changer, am I right, folks?

 

Unfortunately, thanks to that stupid deal, ol’ Six-Fingers’s head is off-limits.  For now, anyway.

But hey, maybe Pinetree or Shooting Star could be a little more...open-minded...

Notes:

Even when they don't remember each other, the boys can still find something to fight about.
So sad.

Chapter 11: More questions without answers

Notes:

Happy February, everyone.

The children decided the easiest place to start cleaning (not to mention the most beneficial for them) was their room.

They began by sweeping all the dust and dirt that they could into a dustpan before dumping it out the window.  This took quite some time, even after they finished beating the rug clean, and after they finished that Mabel worked up the courage to sneak back downstairs for rags and buckets so they could get some serious furniture-dusting and floor-mopping done.

There was no sign of Grunkle Ford when she reached the main hallway; she hoped he’d just gone somewhere to cool off, instead of going to argue with Soledad again.  While she could understand why he was so upset about the beast’s idea, just yelling at him about it didn’t seem like it would help things in the long run.  As she gathered the supplies they would need, she began entertaining the notion of making them apology sweaters and encouraging them to just sit down somewhere and talk about their differences...

Mabel was still musing over the possibilities (and trying to guess how much yarn she would need to make a sweater that would fit Soledad) as she went out one of the back doors of the castle and found a well in the (very neglected) garden, containing water that was surprisingly clean-looking, and used it to fill up one of the buckets.

She realized too late the problem of having such a full bucket: namely that she would have to carry it all the way up the stairs again.

Ugh, it’d be nice if there was a dumbwaiter here like at Grunkle Ford’s house...if there was one, it’d probably be right around here, where this big stone is.

She tapped a half-hearted fist against the spot on the stairwell-and froze when it made a hollow, echoing noise.  And instead of rock, it felt like wood under her knuckles.

 

Mabel hesitated, and then tentatively knocked on the spot again.  The same thing happened.

She set the bucket down, and then reached out to the sides of the stone, tugging experimentally on each one; after a second, it opened up on very creaky hinges, revealing that there was, indeed, a platform and a set of ropes inside!

...No crank, though.  That’s kinda annoying.

Regardless, Mabel set the bucket on the platform, and after a moment began trying to push it upwards by hand.

It...worked about as well as you might expect.

At last she gave up in frustration, and closed the door...before gathering the rest of the cleaning supplies and heading upstairs to find where the other end was.

 

Dipper came to meet her when she got to the top of the stairs.

“Mabel, where’s the water-?”  He stared at her as she began going from side to side and knocking on the largest pieces of stone in the walls.  “...Um, Mabel?  What-”

“Ssh!”  She held up a silencing finger.  A second later she knocked on a new section of wall, and let out a frustrated huff when all that she got was another regular “knuckles on rock” noise.

She went across to the other side of the wall, knocking on another piece-and let out a squeal of excitement when the result was hollow woodenness.

Mabel hurriedly grappled with the fake stone, and pulled it free to reveal the other end of the dumbwaiter-and even better, it turned out that there was a smaller ‘stone’ area next to it that concealed the crank!

“Wait, what the-” Dipper rushed to her side, peering down into the depths of the shaft.  Mabel began turning the crank, and soon enough they could see and hear the rumbling of the platform, carrying the bucket.  It creaked a little ominously, probably because it hadn’t been used in years, but at least it managed to hold.

“It’s just like the one in Grunkle Ford’s house, but a lot older!” Mabel said excitedly, reaching out and grabbing the bucket once the platform came to a stop.

“Wait, wait wait wait!”  Dipper scratched the side of his head; the “an exciting mystery is happening right under my nose” expression was shining in his eyes anew.  “Didn’t Tate say his dad was the one who invented that?”

“Yeah.”  Realization slowly settled in, and Mabel stared at the dumbwaiter in equal shock and excitement.

Because what were the odds of the same invention being in two different places and not invented by the same person?

“...We need to figure out a way to get them here.  This castle seems to be helping Grunkle Ford’s memories already, so it’ll probably help McGucket’s too.  And maybe it’ll be easier to get some answers.”

Mabel nodded.  “Agreed.”

“But not right this second,” Dipper said hurriedly.  “Not when Soledad’s in this kind of mood.”

She reluctantly conceded the point, and they went back to work.

---

After about an hour of scrubbing and dusting the last bits of filth from the floor in their room, the twins sat down on the bed to let everything dry so they could lay the rug back down.

Without thinking about it, Mabel said aloud, “This all feels like one of those stories Dad used to tell us.”

Dipper’s shoulders tightened-but then the corner of his mouth quirked up wistfully.  “...Yeah, it kinda does.”

Mr. Pines had, in true Scheherezade style, enjoyed getting his children to go to sleep by telling them long, complicated stories with lots of twists and turns and interesting characters with secret backstories that would gradually be unraveled.  The stories would often be so long they would have to be told over the course of several weeks, and they’d be kept guessing over what was going to happen next.  The children suspected that there were a lot of details he was just making up as he went along, but it was more than worth it for the sheer thrill of the new, exciting tale.

“Of course, if this was one of his stories the animals would probably be able to talk,” Dipper pointed out.  “Or you’d develop the magical ability to speak to them, because you’re a princess in disguise or something, and-” he did as close to an imitation of their father’s voice as his own squeaky puberty voice was capable of- “as everyone knows, princesses are always capable of talking to their animal companions as easily as if they were humans!”

Both of them burst into giggles.

 

When the laughter died away, Mabel let out a small sigh.

“...I wish they were here.”

Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed like Dipper flinched a little, before staring down at his lap.

“...Me too.”

He hesitated, looking like he was about to say something else-but then the door opened, and Soledad came striding in.

 

He still did not look happy; his fur was bristling all over, and the tips of his fangs were showing, and they could see his claws digging into the floor as he walked.

Immediately both of them jumped to their feet.

“We were just taking a break!” Dipper said quickly.  “We weren’t slacking off!”

Soledad blinked, and looked a little confused for a second.  All he said, though, was, “Where’s the old jerk?”

Mabel felt a nervous flutter in her stomach.  “He’s not downstairs?”

Soledad growled.  “Ya think I’d be asking about him if he was?”

Both of them shrank back; to their surprise, that seemed to calm him down.  His fur settled, and he stepped back, looming over them a little less.  “I can’t find him anywhere.”

 

And then, as if on cue, they all heard a pained yell which sounded as if it was coming from the forest.

Chapter 12: The law of the claw

Notes:

I thought about including something Groundhog Day-related. Since, y'know, it's Groundhog Day.
Unfortunately, I got nothing.
Except this song link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylGrQVL774k

Ford hadn’t meant to leave the castle grounds when he first stormed outside.

Really.

He’d gone out there because he couldn’t spend one more second in the same castle with that obnoxious furry monstrosity, and wound up just stomping up and down the unkempt lawns and overgrown paths, crushing plants under his boots, and just expressing his general frustration and displeasure with the world through aggressive pacing.

Unfortunately, he could see no real loopholes in the deal he’d made: he and the children were to stay with Soledad and do chores (Ugh, which was a whole new level of petty, by the way!  Why couldn’t the beast do his own cleaning?!) until he decided to set them free because their so-called “debt” was paid off.  And a deal was a deal, and you couldn’t break one, no matter how much you might want to.
There weren’t even any helpful clauses indicating that they could back out of whatever chores were assigned to them, or promises that if they disobeyed or argued with him he wouldn’t-

 

Ford paused, and considered.

...No, actually.

Based on his previous behavior, it didn’t seem like Soledad would do anything to genuinely hurt them.  Even when he was angry at the children for trespassing, all he’d done was lock them in a room, and supplied them with a fire and (somewhat minimal) comfort.  And after the deal was struck, he’d given them a room, clothes, food.  And sure, he seemed to have no problem with picking Ford up and threatening him face to face, but even then he’d never even used his claws on him.  He just threw him around a little.  That wasn’t consistent with the behavior of someone intending to harm you, right?

...Then again, what did Ford know about whether or not people were going to hurt you or not?  The last time he’d trusted someone besides Fiddleford or Tate, and believed his intentions were good, it had resulted in-

Wait.

Ford struggled to grab onto this memory before it could slip away again.  He knew this, this was important , it was the-the thing he kept needing to remember!  Something terrible had happened to him once, because he’d trusted the wrong person, and then it led to him losing-

He realized too late how close he was to the still open gateway, and that he had absentmindedly wandered right through it into the forest.

 

Ford had gone almost a full day without experiencing a headache; the one that jumped on him now caught him completely off guard.  He put a hand to his forehead, staggering like a baby deer as he tried to keep from falling from the strength of the sudden, stabbing pain, like shards of glass being driven through his skull, please anybody make it STOP-

When he opened his eyes again, he was leaning against a tree.

His bangs were damp with sweat, and his palms were throbbing; a glance made him realize that he’d been digging his nails into them, hard enough to leave five crescent-shaped marks.

What-what had just happened?  And-where was he?

Ford looked around, realizing that he was surrounded by trees, with no path in sight.

For a moment his chest seized up with irrational panic, before he clenched his jaw and straightened his spine.

Get ahold of yourself, Stanford.  You probably just went for a walk in the woods and got lost-or fell asleep in a fairy ring again.  It’s not the first time you’ve been alone out here, and it probably won’t be the last.

...Tate and Fiddleford are not going to be pleased if I stayed out all night.  Maybe I ought to stay home for a day or so to appease them.  I could take the time to tidy up some of my papers.

...Wait, didn’t-someone else already do that?

Ford tried to remember-and his head shrieked with pain again, sending him stumbling further into the trees while clutching his skull.

He saw the figures in the shadows, and heard the beginning chords of a bluegrass song being played, far too late.

---

***

---

“Grunkle Ford!”  Dipper started to run for the door-but a heavy gray paw caught him in the chest, shoving him back.

“Stay here,” Soledad growled.  “I’ll go get him.”

“But-”

The beast rounded on him with such an intense glare it was a wonder his legs didn’t turn to stone right then and there.  “ Stay.  Here. ”  He put two claws in his mouth, and whistled; a minute later Soos came bounding up the stairs.

“Watch them,” Soledad ordered, indicating the kids.  “I gotta go save their idiot uncle.”  And then, with a crack of his neck, he went bounding away down the stairs.

---

***

---

This time, there was a whole pack of KillBillies that surrounded Ford.  All in the same kind of ill-fitting, bloodstained overalls and wide, floppy hats.  He hadn’t been able to ascertain if there were KillMillies, or if they reproduced asexually or something, but he definitely wasn’t seeing any evidence of them here.  Just a cluster of hungry, vicious hill men, all watching him with wide, glowing eyes.

For the moment, at least, they seemed to be more curious than anything else, probably wondering why their potential prey was staggering about so strangely.

Ford felt terror threatening to choke him, and stubbornly forced it back down.  Since his behavior seemed to be keeping them at bay for the time being, he continued staggering and moaning; maybe they’d think he was diseased or something, and choose to leave him be.  In case they didn’t, though, his eyes frantically scanned the surrounding area for a potential weapon.

One of the KillBillies let out a curious grunt, and crab-walked closer to him; it raised a long, unwashed arm, and plucked at the back of his trenchcoat.

Despite his resolve to stay calm, Ford pulled away quickly, and let out a disgusted noise.

The KillBilly’s lips curled upwards, giving him a good view of its many ( many ) teeth, and it hooted to its fellows, before hamboning against its knees.

...Ford wished he’d taken more time to learn about that from hearing Fiddleford and Tate secretly talking to each other from a collection of seemingly-random slaps against different parts of their body; for all he knew, the creature could have just said, “Coyotes are coming for our sweetbreads.”  Though under the circumstances, it was probably something far more sinister.

The rest of the pack responded with a chorus of grunting and hamboning, and began to surge closer as well, all wearing wide, hungry grins.

Clearly the time for playing “wounded deer” was over.

 

Without hesitation, Ford lunged, snatching up a large fallen branch, and whirled with it, catching one of the KillBillies in the teeth.  Then he broke into a run.

A pair of KillBillies came at him from either side, letting out high, enraged screeches; he just dived, allowing them to crash face-first into each other, and then scrambled to his feet again to try and regain his lost ground.

Every time one of the awful beasts got close, he would lash out with his makeshift club, or a couple of times even with his fists if they were close enough.  He tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head warning him that he was an old man who couldn’t keep this up forever, and just tried to focus on finding some high ground, or a convenient shop (they couldn’t go into places like that, because they respected the rules of no shirt, no shoes, no service), or anything that would save him.

 

Everything was chaos and panic; Ford could see the KillBillies leaping and scrambling through the trees on either side of him, trying to get in front of him so they could cut him off.  He just ignored the rapidly-growing stitch in his side and picked up speed to prevent that from happening.  If he could even find a path-

There!  He barely managed to make out a streak of brown laid out between the trees over to his left!

Ford swung the branch with reckless abandon at the KillBilly closest to him, and then began to charge in that direction-

A heavy weight slammed into him from above, knocking him onto his back.

For a moment Ford saw stars, as the back of his head slammed into something hard, like rock or a hunk of wood; when his vision cleared, he saw that there was a KillBilly crouched over him, with its knees being used to pin down his arms.

No.  No no no, it can’t end like this!  Please!

Ford struggled, kicking out with his legs and thrashing like a rabbit caught in a trap; the KillBilly just smiled, showing off its dripping fangs, and began prodding at his chest and neck, as if trying to choose where to take the first bite.

The others clustered around, uttering little howls of triumph (or perhaps disappointment that they weren’t the ones to catch him).  Then the one pinning him seemed to make up its mind, rearing back its head with mouth opened wide-

-and a large blur of gray slammed into it, knocking it off of Ford.

---

He sat up in shock, in time to see what looked like some kind of exceptionally large tiger dropping the crushed remains of the KillBilly from its jaws, before letting out an earth-shattering roar.

Ford’s head throbbed again, even as his heart clenched in terror that some new eldritch abomination had decided it wanted the privilege of finishing him off-but then a name flittered across his mind.

...Soledad?

The rest of them all decided to attack the beast at once, shrieking with rage over the demise of their packmate; he showed no mercy in return.  Ones that fell under his feet were kicked and stomped on, any that came into contact with his jaws received bites that they’d be lucky to live through, his claws raked through flesh like knives through butter, and blood was flying everywhere.

The KillBillies gave as good as they got.  They climbed onto his back, pounding at him with heavy fists and scratching him with equal vengeance; a few even managed to get bites in, which were accompanied by the greedy sucking sound of them beginning to feast.  Soledad fell over backwards and crushed them under his weight before throwing them off.

All the same, there were at least ten of them, and only one of him...and somehow, those odds just didn’t sit right with Ford.

He snatched up his club again, and charged back into the fray with an enraged holler.

 

It could have been minutes or hours, Ford couldn’t tell which, before the battle ended; it was mostly a blurry haze of smashing and clubbing, all the while trying to avoid fangs and long-nailed fingers.

But at last, the KillBillies still standing offered anxious hoots to each other, before retreating into the trees.

Ford’s arms throbbed as he let the branch drop, and stood there trembling.  It took him a moment to realize that at some point, he and Soledad had ended up back to back, and that he could feel the beast’s heavy form pressed against him.

Slowly he turned to face him-and saw that he was bent over, with his paws pressed against his knees, and taking deep, heaving breaths.

“Um-”

Soledad jerked his head up and snarled at him, revealing that his jaws were caked with gore.  “What?!”

Ford pulled out of biting distance, just in case, and tried to remember how he knew the creature’s name.  It had something to do with-

“The kids!  Where are the kids?!”

Soledad groaned, and tried to straighten up.  “Hopefully...back at the castle where I left ‘em.”

... Castle?

Wait, yes!  Yes, I remember now!  The children found it, and we were staying there because-

It was becoming harder to remember by the second, even when he concentrated; he gripped his hair, and forced himself to focus on the main anchor that was available to him: I need to get back to the kids.

To his equal parts annoyance and relief, Soledad snatched him up and slung him over his shoulder before he began trudging away; as long as he was willing to do all the walking, that would make it easier for Ford to focus.

---

***

---

For the third time Dipper and Mabel tried unsuccessfully to run for the gate, only to get knocked back by Soos.

“C’mon, man!” Dipper pleaded.  “We gotta go out there-Grunkle Ford needs us!”

Soos shook his head firmly, and gave them as stern a look as he was capable of.

Dipper felt his frustration rising, along with something deeper and far more visceral.  “You don’t understand !”  He couldn’t even be embarrassed over how his voice cracked.  “He’s all we have!  We-I can’t-”

He could feel his chest growing tight, as horrifying images swam through his mind, of his uncle lying all pale and still, just like his mother and father and grandfather-

“Look!”

 

Soos, who they had already managed to fool once with the old “Look behind you!” gag, did not appear impressed.

Mabel just pointed more emphatically.  “They’re back!  They’re coming down the path!”

Soos still wouldn’t turn around-not until he heard the labored breathing from behind him-and, presumably, smelled the sharp tang of blood in the air.

Soledad barely took the time to lower Grunkle Ford, who was clutching his head and moaning, off his shoulder and onto the grass at his side, before collapsing face-first into a patch of wild marigolds.

Chapter 13: Extending an olive branch

Soledad woke up to the feeling of a damp cloth being rubbed against his face, and lots of spots on his back and arms and stomach stinging and throbbing and aching.

He opened his eyes, slowly, and found himself lying in front of a fire, on his side, with the kids kneeling before him.  They were surrounded by bowls of bloody water, damp rags, a couple of jars of something that smelled like medicine and a pile of bandages; the girl was currently wiping at the bottom of his mouth with one of the rags, while the boy was winding a strip of bandage around the end of his tail.  Wendy was next to him, with the tips of her paws covered in the medicine stuff, while Soos sat behind her, wearing a very literal hangdog expression and a cloth sticking out of his mouth.  Even Pacifica had apparently dropped the snotty attitude for once and helped out with taking care of someone other than herself, if the pieces of bandage stuck to her foot were anything to go by.

The girl brightened when she saw that his eyes were open.

“Oh good, you’re awake!”

 

The moment he heard that, Soos let out a happy bark and bounded past everyone to jump on the beast, smothering him with joyful licks until he shoved him off.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m glad I’m not dead too.  Now get off me.”

Once Soos was pushed back enough for him to see, he got a good look at his arm. It had been wrapped from his wrist to his elbow in a long white bandage.  There was another one tied around his stomach, and he could feel some spots on his back and shoulders that were covered up too.  It occurred to him to wonder where all this medicine and stuff had come from; he certainly didn’t remember stealing it.

“Uh-how-”

“We had Wendy get stuff to help us fix you up, cuz you got hurt pretty bad fighting those KillBillies,” the girl explained.  “Grunkle Ford says you’re lucky they didn’t exterminate you.”

“Technically, the word I used was ‘exsanguinate,’” the old jerk’s voice corrected.  Soledad tilted his head back and saw him sitting on the sofa behind them, with a bandage wrapped around his forehead and a couple more around the palms of his hands.  For once he wasn’t wearing that stupid trenchcoat; instead he was in the nightshirt Soledad had found for him, and a pair of big fluffy slippers.  María was sitting curled up on the sofa above his head, and appeared to be grooming his hair.

“But I suppose you were at a risk for both things happening, since their preferred method of killing is by sucking your blood.  You’re lucky that you got out of that alive.”

Soledad growled.  “Well, ex cuse me for comin’ ta save your butt after you went wandering into the forest like an idiot !”  He sat up slowly, turning his back on the old jerk.  He noticed, to his indignation, that he’d had most of his clothes removed, except for his shorts and undershirt; yeah, they’d been falling to pieces anyway, but still.

He heard an indignant growl from behind him that almost matched his in anger level.  “It’s not like I meant to!  It was an accident !”

He couldn’t help snorting.  “Oh, sure !  You just ‘accidentally’ wandered outside?!”  Soledad didn’t know why, but something about this whole exchange felt...off.  Backwards, or something.

“Do you honestly think I would have tried to leave on purpose?  After we made a deal, and without taking the children with me?”

“There’s plenty o’ people in the world who make deals without keeping ‘em.”  He was pretty sure he’d been one of them, back in the...before-back at some point in his past.  “And plenty who’ve abandoned children, too.”

He heard the old jerk let out a shocked noise, before abruptly he was stomping around to stand right in front of Soledad.  His face was like a thundercloud, and not even the fact that he was in his nightshirt and slippers was enough to undermine his ferocity.

“Listen to me, beast.  If and when I decide to leave here, or you ‘allow’ me to leave, it will be with Dipper and Mabel.  I would never willingly leave them here.  Believe whatever else you want to about me, but that will always be the truth.”

 

Everyone stared at him in amazement.  Even, Soledad noticed, the kids.  They were staring at their uncle with wide eyes, even as he marched back to the sofa and sat down again.

Apparently this is news to them, too.

“...So why’d you go out so far, then?”

There was an uncomfortable pause, before the old jerk finally said with an irritated huff, “It...was a mistake.  I went for a walk, and wandered too far from the wall.”

...Yeah, he didn’t believe that.  It didn’t sound exactly untrue, but he could tell there was a lie in the words.  But whatever.  If the old jerk didn’t wanna tell the big, scary monster the truth, he wouldn’t hold it against him.  It was no skin off his nose.

He was caught off guard, however, by the next words out of the old jerk’s mouth: “Thank you.  You saved my life.”

 

Soledad hadn’t expected the level of visceral reaction he would experience from hearing someone verbally thank him for something.  He was mortified to actually feel a lump rising in his throat, which he quickly tried to swallow down, while rubbing the back of his neck with one claw.  He didn’t-couldn’t-turn to look at the old jerk- Ford .

“Heh.  Well, y’know, I figured you knew more about lookin’ after these little gremlins than I would.”  He gestured to the kids; the girl smiled at him in a weirdly knowing way, while the boy looked self-conscious and awkward (so, as far as he knew, situation normal).

Soledad was pretty sure he was the only one who heard Ford murmur softly, “...No, not really.”

---

***

---

For a few minutes everyone lapsed into silence, save for the crackling of the flames.

Despite all the tension that had just been here, it was surprisingly warm and comfortable.

Eventually the beast scooted until his back was resting against the sofa, and stretched his legs out in front of him with a tired sigh, in a way that made him seem...oddly human.

A second later Soos padded over to his side and flopped back down with his head in his lap.  Instead of shoving him off again, Soledad just lifted one of his big paws and began scratching his ears.

As if taking that as a cue, the other animals congregated around him too.  Wendy lay down next to his feet, batting playfully at his toes; the old gray cat hopped down to the sofa cushions just behind Soledad’s head and began washing his fur; the peahen squirmed under his free arm and crooned until he stroked her neck feathers.

 

Grunkle Ford relaxed too, tilting his head back and resting one of his hands over his stomach.

Satisfied that their nursing requirements had been completed, Mabel made her way to the sofa and clambered up against Ford’s side without hesitation; he uttered a surprised grunt, but then rested his hand on her shoulder and absentmindedly stroked her hair.

There was enough room on the sofa left for Dipper to join the domestic scene; as he was getting up to do just that, though, he stopped and blinked.

Maybe it was a trick of the firelight, or something, but-when he looked at the forms of his uncle and the beast, both leaning back in a very similar way...maybe it was just the shape of their chins, but-

He rubbed his forehead.

The stress must be getting to me.

He made sure he’d cleaned his hands, and then went and made himself comfortable next to his sister.

Notes:

Like many other people, I’ve decided to call Soos’s abuelita Maria.
Just in case you get confused about who I’m referring to.

Chapter 14: Meanwhile, back at the house

Fiddleford had been searchin’ the forest for almos’ twelve hours straight afore he finally gave up an’ turned the old prototype automaton back towards home (thankfully he’d thought ta include a little compass that’d tell him the right direction, or he woulda been lost in the woods fer sure).  He barely noticed that his overalls were soaked, or the way his hat kept drippin’ water on the end o’ his nose, or how much his arms were shiverin’ and quiverin’ away.  It didn’t matter no how, since Dipper ‘n Mabel were prob’ly goin’ through far worse, wherever they were.

With every step the giant metal legs took between the trees, he half expected ta find the kidlets’ poor frozen bodies lyin’ on the ground somewheres, as a thousand terror-fyin’ sitiations that mighta happened chased each other through the confused jumble of foggy confusion and fixation on mechanics that passed for his brain.

Oh donkey spittle, chonkifyin’ skulduggery-ifyin’ banjo polish!  What if they ran inta the gnomes, and they were out lookin’ fer a queen again?  Mabel’s too young fer ta get married!  Or a gremloblin, one o’ them makers o’ nightmares?  Or they’re in that part o’ the forest where-

The headache that throbbed in his skull was so strong that he nearly ran into a tree, and just barely pulled the lever that brought him to a stop in time.

Fiddleford took a moment to bring hisself as far back unner control as he was capable of, afore gettin’ goin’ again.

Mebbe Stanford or Tate found ‘em.  They’re better at stuff like that anyhow.  Actin’ like functionin’, sensible human beings, I mean.

Or at least Tate is.

---

When he finally pulled up outside the house, Tate came thumpin’ out the back door, with some kinda paper clenched in his hand, lookin’ far more excited and agitated than he’d ever seen his boy.

“Dad!  They’re okay!”

Fiddleford slipped in the act o’ climbin’ outta the automaton, and nearly fell right off inta the mud.

“Say what?  Did ya find ‘em?”

“No, but I found this when I came back!  It’s a note from Stanford, saying that they’re all okay, but they’ve been captured by a beast!”

This time, Fiddleford really did fall off.

 

Half an hour later, Fiddleford was in clean, dry clothes, with his feet in a tub o’ warm water, starin’ at the note.  It was damp and torn around the edges, and it looked like something with tiny sharp teeth had bit into it, but the writing was still easy to recognize as belongin’ ta Ford.

“...Well, technically he said ‘indentured servitude,’” Tate corrected, peering over his father’s shoulder.  Then he sighed and shook his head.  “Sounds like the kinda trouble Stanford’d get hisself into, sure enough.”

“Yeah, but why’d he haveta drag the kids into it?”  Fiddleford tugged at the blanket he was wearin’ anxiously.

“He ain’t exactly the best caretaker on the planet,” Tate muttered.

Fiddleford pretended not ta hear, just tapped the note ‘gainst his other palm and tried ta think clearly fer once.

Beast...why’s that sound familiar?

It makes me think of...somethin’ important-like.  From my past.

Beast...Beast...Beast...Beast-

---

 

WHEN GRAVITY FALLS AND EARTH BECOMES SKY, FEAR THE BEAST WITH JUST ONE EYE

I dunno, it seems kind of dangerous

You don’t understand, Fiddleford-if we can pull this off

Just think about the possibilities, man

Door door door door with a blue symbol on the front, slowly creaking open

Chanting chanting chanting, symbols on the ground

Flash of yellow light

WELL WELL WELL

YROO XRKSVI GIRZMTOV

 

---

When Fiddleford recovered hisself, he was lyin’ on the floor, soakin’ wet cuz he musta knocked the tub over.

Tate was kneeling at his side, holdin’ a cushion under his head ta keep it from smackin’ ‘gainst the floor, and half-cradlin’ him.

Fiddleford’s head ached in a way it hadn’t since-great balls o’ fire, how long’d it been since the last time he had a fit that bad?

 

Tate seemed ta realize he was awake now; Fiddleford felt him sitting up and rubbin’ his shoulder.

“Dad?  How ya feelin’?”

His son’s voice wobbled, makin’ Fiddleford’s heart hurt.  He hated makin’ his boy feel like this, he hated bein’ broken an’ all jumbled-up, he hated how he could barely take care o’ hisself, let alone two kids-

Slowly he sat up, and looked back down at the letter.  He couldn’t quite remember which part of it had driven him inta that fit, but he did recollect what it said.

“Tate,” he said in a firm voice he hadn’t needed since Tate were just a boy, “start heatin’ up the furnace.  We’re gonna finish that automaton, and then we’re gonna go find Stanford and the kidlets and save ‘em from that beast.”

Notes:

Clan McGucket is on the warpath.
Tremble in fear, brief mortals.

Chapter 15: More secrets, but dreams instead of pies this time

Dipper woke up to the feeling of someone gently shaking his shoulder.

He opened his eyes groggily, and managed to make out Grunkle Ford standing over him, with Mabel at his side.

The fire had burned down to embers, bathing most of the room in shadows, and all the animals (including the beast) were sound asleep.  In fact, Soledad was snoring, loud enough to rival their grandfather, who’d practically been able to make the windows shake while he was sleeping.

“Come on,” Ford whispered, “let’s go to our room.”

 

There was another lantern above the fireplace, and Ford used a still-burning coal to light it so they could make their way upstairs in comparative safety.

It wasn’t raining tonight, so Dipper could hear the castle creaking ominously as they walked up the unstable staircase, along with a hundred other strange sounds echoing here and there: scratching, faint rumbling, the thin scritch-scritch-scritch of a branch scraping against a window somewhere.  Even though he was a little less afraid of the place than he’d been when he first arrived, having met the master and beginning to see him as not quite as monstrous as he appeared, goosebumps still ran down the boy’s arms.

Once they were securely in their room and the rug had been spread back out on the now-clean floor, Dipper cleared his throat nervously.

“Grunkle Ford?”

His uncle looked at him with an inquiring expression; he vaguely noticed that the bandage was starting to droop a little over his eyebrows, so they’d have to retie it at some point.

“What-what you told Soledad earlier…”  He gulped, really not wanting to ask this but feeling like he needed to, “...do you think we could get that in writing?”

 

It was almost funny, watching the way expressions chased each other over Ford’s face.  At first he just looked confused; then slow realization began to set in, which evolved into shock, and then...absolute devastation.  He knelt down and beckoned to the children.

“Come here.”

Dipper and Mabel approached, and he put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Listen to me, both of you.”  Ford looked back and forth between their faces as he spoke.  “I would never try to leave you behind.  When we go, we go together.  I promise.”  He chewed his lip, looked uncertain for a moment, and then continued with more resolve, “I accidentally strayed outside the castle walls while I was walking, and...had another memory lapse, which caused me to wander away.”

Dipper’s stomach twisted.  “Really?”

Ford nodded.  His expression was somewhere between worried, curious, and frustrated.  “It seems...being here helps with that, somehow.  It makes it easier for me to remember things consistently, and-and even dredge up beginnings of old memories-or at least what I think are memories.”

“Maybe you’re under an evil spell, Grunkle Ford!” Mabel suggested.

 

Ford blinked-but then tilted his head and considered the idea.

“...It would explain a few things,” he admitted at last, rubbing his chin.  “I’ve never heard of one specifically based around causing selective memory loss, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Mabel grinned at Dipper.  “See?  I told you it was probably a spell.”

Dipper sighed, and reluctantly nodded in acknowledgement.  “Yeah, yeah, don’t let it go to your head.”

“A hem .”  Ford drew their attention back to him.  “I think that if we’re to get any substantial answers about this, we need to find that journal.  So starting tomorrow, when we get back to cleaning and preparing to turn this castle into an-” his nose wrinkled like he was smelling something bad, before he muttered the next word out through gritted teeth- “ attraction , I want you two to look everywhere you can for where Soledad might have put it.  Do you think you can do that for me?”

Dipper nodded eagerly.  “You got it, Grunkle Ford.”

“Me too,” Mabel chimed in.

Ford beamed, and squeezed their shoulders.  “Very good.”

---

***

---

Despite the stressful day they’d had, the Pines family had very little trouble going back to sleep.

Or, perhaps it was because of the stress taking its toll on their bodies, making them more exhausted.  Ford wasn’t sure which, but either way it seemed like the moment he closed his eyes he was asleep.  And once again, he dreamed.

---

He was running on the beach on a hot summer’s day, feeling sand getting in his shoes but more worried about the dire threats his mother had made if he came home with sliced up feet again.  Up ahead of him, another figure ran faster, laughing and kicking up sand as he chased an irritated seagull.

“Hey, wait up!” Ford called, trying to pick up speed.

“Yeah, you should keep up!” the figure retorted with a quick glance over his shoulder-quick enough that all he was able to see of his face was the faint glint of his smile in the sunlight.

“I can keep up!”

They chased each other over a sand dune towards the water, at which point the gull finally took to the air, out of the other boy’s reach.  He let out a disgusted sound, and kicked a shell with his shoe, scuffing the toe.

Ooh, that’s the third time this month.  Pa’s not gonna be happy if he sees that he keeps ruining his shoes-especially cuz he wants to present us at court soon.

Before Ford could point this out, the other boy suddenly turned his head-and let out a surprised gasp as his eye landed on a spot they hadn’t discovered before.

 

It was an old cave, right on the edge of where the high tide would rush in, and at some point someone had boarded it up.

Instantly both of them were curious.

“Uh, ladies first,” the other boy said, bowing to Ford.

He gave him a playful punch in the arm, and was treated in kind, before trying-and failing-to pull it open.

“Good thing ya got your smarts, Sixer!” the boy said, turning towards the entrance.  “I got the other thing!  What was it called?  Oh, yeah-PUNCHING!”

A minute later the boards were in pieces, and they were slipping through the dark creepy entrance, eager for this new adventure into the unknown-

When suddenly a horrifying, bloodcurdling roar split the air!

---

Ford was abruptly jolted awake, gasping as his sleep-addled brain tried to process what had just happened.  For some strange reason, the corners of his eyes felt a little damp.

Both the kids were clinging to him again; he could feel their fingers digging into his nightshirt, and that they were both trembling.

“Wha-what was-”  He sat up and squinted, realizing that it was still dark outside.

“...You know about the creature that sometimes roars in the middle of the night?” Dipper asked.

“Yes.”  Oh good; someone else was able to hear that, and he wasn’t going crazy after all.

“We just found out what was doing that.”

“...Ah.”

In hindsight, it was kind of obvious.

 

“Do you think we should be worried?”  Dipper cast an anxious glance towards the door, as if he thought Soledad was about to smash through it and disembowel them.

“...Maybe he’s just not sleeping well,” Mabel suggested.  “Or his injuries might be bothering him or something.  Should we go check on him?”

“No, I think his…” Ford struggled for the right word, “... companions should be able to take care of him if it’s anything like that.”

Mabel made an unhappy sound, but when Ford lay down again she snuggled down against his shoulder.

Dipper was a little more reluctant; he kept sitting up until Ford gently tugged his shirt.

It was about ten minutes before any of them relaxed enough to go back to sleep.

---

***

---

The nightmares were back.

Soledad didn’t get them as often as he used to.  He’d almost forgotten how much they sucked .

The worst part was that when he woke up, he could barely remember what they’d been about; mostly what he felt afterwards wasn’t even fear, like you might be expecting.

What he felt instead was a deep sense of loss .

It frustrated him to no end, while at the same time it tore him apart.

Slowly, painfully, he sat up from his spot on the floor and wiped at his eyes (if anyone asked, it was that gritty stuff that ended up around your eyes while you were asleep, and there was no way you could prove anything else).

His animals, who of course had all been awakened by his roaring, clustered around him with worried eyes.  Soledad tried to give them a reassuring smile.

“It’s okay, guys.  Just a dumb dream, no big deal.”

Soos whined and pawed at his arm, while María hopped up onto his shoulder and rubbed against his cheek.

Soledad just lifted her off (gently; she wasn’t exactly in the prime of youth anymore) and set her on the ground.

“I’m fine ,” he insisted.  “I’m just...gonna go stretch my legs and get some o’ the jitters out o’ my system.  Kay?  Just go back ta sleep.”

None of them seemed convinced, but they all curled back around each other and made themselves comfortable again.

 

Soledad, once he was on his feet, ignored the way some of his injuries twinged, and headed for an altogether different part of the castle.

It was about time he took another look at that journal, to try and figure out what it meant.

Notes:

Situations like this, ladies and gentlemen and other pronouns, are what happens when people don't communicate with each other properly.
Learn from it, please, so you don't repeat their mistakes.

Chapter 16: Work becomes a little more rewarding

Notes:

I know it's been awhile since I added to this. I'm sorry, I've had a hard time balancing school and work, and apparently now work thinks I'm doing such a good job that they want me to upgrade my time to thirty minutes of transcribing a day even though I feel like I'm barely scraping by getting twenty minutes done-
*Starting to dissolve into incoherent sobbing*

*Awkward throat clear*
I'm okay, don't worry about me.

The next day, the kids and Ford were once again woken up with the dawn, when the peahen came in through the window and squawked them into wakefulness.

They dressed and went down to the kitchen, where some more food was laid out for them; today it was a bowl of fresh fruit, and a large pot of oatmeal that was still warm.  Ford suspected, since there didn’t seem to be any kind of food storage available in this kitchen, that they had been stolen from somewhere else.  However, beggars couldn’t be choosers in these circumstances, so he poured a bowl for each of the children, cutting up some of the fruit for them to add to it, and helped himself to the oatmeal once both his children were eating.

 

They were halfway through the meal when a door set in the wall of the kitchen opened, and out stepped the beast.  He still looked worn out and sore from yesterday’s events, and was leaning on his cane kind of heavily, but he was moving around well enough, and perhaps had recovered from the worst of it.  He was also still in his underclothes; perhaps he didn’t have other clothes?  Well, of course not-it wasn’t like he’d have ready access to a tailor.

Dipper looked at the door he’d stepped out of in surprise.

“What’s in there?” he asked curiously.

“The severed heads of all my dead wives,” Soledad deadpanned.  He let that sink in for a moment, before saying more sincerely, “Broom closet,” and opening the door so they could see that he’d stacked all their cleaning supplies inside.  “Figure you can stick these in here when you’re done for the day.”

Ford gave a small nod, and spooned the last of the oatmeal into his mouth.  A few drops of it dripped onto his shoe, and were quickly licked up by Soos, who of course was laying under the table in the hopes of getting scraps.

 

“We probably need to change your bandages before we get to work,” Mabel said, putting her bowl under the table for Soos to lick clean.  “Both of you.”

Ford startled, but then remembered that yes, he had been injured as well.

The children both hurried off into the depths of the castle, and came back carrying the bandages and medicine and a bucket of clean water.  As they set all the supplies on the table, Mabel gave Soledad a stern look until he sighed and lumbered forward to settle (as best he could with his enormous form) into one of the vacated chairs.  Once he had, the children went to work on both of them.

“We wanted to give you a bath so we could clean you up better, but we couldn’t find a tub anywhere,” Mabel said as she checked under the bandage on Soledad’s arm.

The beast shrugged.  “I usually just lick myself if I get dirty enough.”

She wrinkled her nose and giggled.  “Ewwww!”

“Hey, it’s not so bad when ya get used to it.”  He flicked out the tip of his tongue, touching it to her forehead and making her scurry backward with an amused shriek.  Then he wrinkled his nose.  “Maybe I oughta see if we have one somewhere, though.  You folks are all really startin’ ta stink.  Especially your brother and the old guy.”

“Hey!”

Soledad was unfazed in the face of Dipper and Ford’s indignation.  “Who’s the one with the superior sense of smell here, you or me?”

Dipper blushed, but glared back at him defiantly.  “Bathing is a waste of time!  I’m a busy guy!”

Soledad’s eyes narrowed.  Then, before Ford could see what was happening, one of his paws lashed out, grabbing his nephew by the arm and pulling him forward, until he was in reach of his jaws-!

-and pulled him onto his lap and began licking his face and hair.

 

The beast’s large tongue made a rough, sandpapery sound as it brushed across Dipper’s forehead and chin, and through his alarm Ford managed to realize, after a second, that the boy wasn’t actually being harmed by the experience.  In fact, he let a few giggles escape when Soledad began cleaning his ears, and his squirming was more out of annoyance than any genuine fright.

Slowly Ford lowered himself back down, and unclenched his fist from around the knife he’d snatched off the table (it was very small, but it was the closest weapon at hand).

Finally Dipper managed to squeak out, “Okay!  Okay!  I’ll take a bath!”

Soledad pulled back, grinning, and booped the end of his nose.  “That’s what I thought, shrimp.”

As he let the boy go, he turned and gave Ford a significant glance.

The old man shrank back a tiny bit.  “I’ll take one too.”

“Good; you look like you’d taste terrible.”

Ford just rolled his eyes at him.

---

The next week fell into more or less the same pattern: the peahen (who Soledad remarked was named Pacifica-he really had made unique naming choices for his animals) would wake them up at dawn, and after breakfast they would continue the herculean task of attempting to clean the castle.

Before anything else, this mostly consisted of just trying to get rid of all the dirt, dust, grime, mold, leaves, cobwebs and other less describable filth that had accumulated over time, including in rooms that had been shut up and forgotten for years.  Before long they had blisters all over their hands, and their arms and legs were more sore than they could ever remember them being, and while they had not yet found a tub, they all had to clean themselves off at the end of every day by heating water on the stove and taking a sort of shower-bath outside (though not all at the same time, of course).

It almost tempted Ford to try this one spell he’d heard about where you could animate cleaning supplies and have them do the work themselves; the only thing stopping him was the fact that he didn’t know how to make them stop working when you were done, and that could end in potential disaster.

He suspected that getting this entire place clean would take years instead of months, unless they could figure out a better way of managing things.

 

Three times a day they would find food in the kitchen, which mostly consisted of fruit, bread, and other things that didn’t require cooking and that Ford became increasingly certain were stolen.

Soledad never ate with them (they never saw him eat, actually, but once Ford saw him half-leap back over the wall surrounding the grounds with what looked like the leg of a deer in his mouth), but often his animal friends would join them, and even do the best they could to help out with chores, considering that they lacked opposable thumbs.

When they were too exhausted to lift one more rag or push a broom another inch, the little group would wander around the castle, or the yard surrounding it, looking for ways to amuse themselves.  The outside was overgrown with vines and weeds, but in one corner lay the remains of what had once been a garden; if you looked closely you could see where things had once grown in neat rows, but had since become entangled and choked out by other plants, leaving only a few that were still capable of bearing fruit or vegetables, none of which seemed overly appetizing.  Ford was sure that if Tate were to see it, he would do his equivalent of dissolving into a paroxysm of rage at the garden’s ill treatment (i.e. glare, and then roll up his sleeves and get to work).  He began putting some effort into cleaning it up, so maybe they could start growing their own food instead of having to steal.

 

The little group enjoyed all the interesting things they kept finding discarded in different rooms which were still somewhat intact-trunks full of old clothes; a fully intact skeleton of an Abominable Bro-Man (Ford recognized the tribal tattoo which was somehow imprinted on the humerus) hanging in a very lifelike pose on a wall which nearly gave Dipper a heart attack when he first opened the door; a collection of fine, chipped china that was relatively usable once it had been washed.  There were no clues about where all of this stuff had come from, but if they found something particularly interesting and showed it to Soledad, he would usually come up with an (admittedly creative, if still very annoying) way that it could be used for an attraction.

And in every room they found, Ford kept his eyes peeled for his journal, or for anymore clues about how he knew this place.

---

Then, one day, Soledad came home wearing a fresh set of ill-fitting black clothes that he must have swiped from somewhere, and carrying a pig under his arm.

“Figured you might want some fresh meat soon-it’s almost winter,” he said at Ford’s questioning glance.  “Even got a couple good spices for it.”  He fished the boxes containing said spices out of his pockets.

As soon as Mabel saw the pig, though, she let out a delighted squeal and went over to snatch it from his arms.

“OH MY GOSH LOOK AT YOU YOUR FACE IS SO FAT!” she cried, holding the pig up and gently shaking it back and forth until its face jiggled.  “You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

Soledad looked...nonplussed.  “Kid, ya might not wanna get too attached.  I got that for-”

“Don’t even think about trying to eat him!” Mabel snapped, glaring up at him.  “I’ve always wanted a pet pig, and this is finally my chance to get one!”  She set the pig down and moved in front of it protectively.

Ford saw the fur on the back of the beast’s neck starting to bristle, and said quickly, “...She has been working very hard lately, and hasn’t complained once.”  At least not in your presence.   “Don’t you think she might deserve some kind of reward for all her service?”

Soledad glanced at him sharply out of the corner of his eye.  Ford flinched, but pressed his point.

“She’ll take good care of it, won’t you, Mabel?”

She nodded without even looking away from her new pet.  “I’m gonna call him Waddles-cuz he waddles when he walks!”  Then she turned her head, and gave Soledad a long, pleading stare.

Soledad rolled his eyes.  “Fine, as long as he doesn’t cause trouble like the last one.”

“...Last one?”

“Yeah, couple years ago I had this white pig I was plannin’ ta fatten up, but he kept gettin’ into everything and biting everyone.”  His teeth glinted in a brief, savage smile.  “He was delicious .”

Mabel shuddered, and hugged Waddles around the neck.  “I’ll make sure he behaves himself, Soledad, I promise!”

“You better.”

---

***

---

Dipper was...needless to say he was startled when he came downstairs and learned that they had a pet pig now. But he took it in stride, and even smiled when Waddles came over and sniffed at his leg.

When chores were done for the day, Mabel immediately took her pig out to play, and Dipper and Ford were starting to head out after her when Soledad’s cane swung into their path.

“Hold up, eggheads.”

Once he had their attention, though, Soledad looked down at his paws, and awkwardly rubbed his neck.

“Um-I-I figured as long as Mabel’s gettin’ a reward for workin’ hard or whatever...oh, just-just come with me, I wanna show ya somethin’.”

And he gruffly stomped off.

Dipper and Ford looked at each other in confusion, but then followed him up to a corridor on the second floor.

 

Soledad stopped in front of a large set of (surprisingly intact) double doors, and then gave them a stern look.

“You both gotta close your eyes.  No peeking.”

Dipper hesitated, but then obeyed.

He heard a jingling noise, and then a loud creak.  A few seconds later a large paw was wrapped around his arm, and pulling him forward, and guiding him to lean against what felt like one of the doors.  There was more rustling and the thudding of feet, then a faint swish sound, and then Soledad’s voice said, “Okay, open ‘em up!”

Dipper opened his eyes-and for a whole minute he could do nothing but gape.

 

The room he and Ford had entered had an enormous glass window, still miraculously intact, with a large set of blue curtains decorating either side of it that were actually clean.  It was big and spacious, and warm and inviting.  And it was absolutely filled with books.

Shelf after shelf was stacked with them-large ones, small ones, ones that looked like they came from a different country altogether.  And unlike the rest of the castle, which had been left to neglect and decay, this magnificent library felt like it was actually used once in a while.  There was less dust in the air, and there was a large table in the middle of the room with a stack of books resting on it.  Soledad was standing next to it, stuffing what looked like a crumpled pawful of papers into his jacket.

“...Um.  Is it too much?” he asked hesitantly.  “It’s too much, isn’t it?  I just thought-since you’re both kinda dorks, this might be-”

“Incredible.”

 

Ford spoke in a hushed whisper, as he took a small step towards one of the shelves.

“This is the most wonderful room I’ve ever been in.”

He had that little frown between his eyebrows that meant he was getting a memory headache, but it didn’t seem as intense as they could sometimes get.  Dipper allowed that to reassure him enough to step forward and do his own examination of the shelves.

“I didn’t think there could be this many books in one place in the whole world!”

“...Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable.  You can’t spend all your time in here, got it?”

“What if it’s to dust the books?  A lot of them look like they need it.”  Dipper was already dreamily examining some volumes on ancient history that were whispering his name.

“ Ugh , I knew this was a bad idea.”

But Soledad had a faint smile on his face as he slipped out, allowing the nerds time to wander the shelves and try to pick out what they wanted to read first.

Chapter 17: Fun and games

Notes:

Spring break is finally here, huzzah!
For those like me, who have no interest in disappearing for a week and winding up in Miami with no idea how they got there, or whatever it is people who drink do during spring break, here's something to read instead.

Also, happy Pi Day, and beware the Ides of March.

The contents of this library could have held all the volumes in Ford’s house five times over, and still had room for a set of encyclopedias.  They weren’t the most organized selection in the world, since Ford could see that many of them had just been haphazardly placed together on the shelf without caring about whether they were alphabetical order, or even in the same genre, but it was still comforting in a way that only a library was capable of.

And, maddeningly, this was another room that he somehow knew ; he didn’t exactly remember being here before, he couldn’t remember when he’d come here or anything, but he recognized it.  As he wandered the shelves, looking at the spines of different books, he felt a tingle of familiarity with them, like they were old friends that he was finally seeing again.  And he knew that if he looked over on this one shelf-yes, there it was!

“Dipper?” Ford called excitedly, “Dipper, come and look at this!”

 

There was a muffled thud, followed by an “Oof!” and then, after some scrambling around, Dipper came running through the shelves to his side.

“What is it?”

Ford pulled a particular book down from the shelf-a second later, Dipper’s eyes went wide as saucers.

“Is that a copy of Master Ballway’s Dungeons, Dungeons & Verily, More Dungeons-the Rulebook ?!”

Ford nearly dropped the heavy tome onto his foot.  “You know this game?!”

Dipper nodded eagerly, eyes aglow.  “Grandpa Shermie taught me how to play it, and he gave me my own set of dice and everything!”  The excitement faded a little.  “...I think they’re still back at your house, though.”

Ford looked back at the shelf, and smiled again.  “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, my boy.  Look!”  And he produced a couple of bags of dice which had been hidden behind the book, followed rapidly by a stack of oddly lined paper and some pencils.

Dipper immediately brightened up again.  “I can never get Mabel to play with me; she gets confused by all the dice-rolling and math stuff.”

“Yes, I had a similar problem with-”  Ford froze, frowning in confusion-which quickly turned to frustration.  The memory had been right there, he’d almost had it!  A petulant frown, and a voice asking, “What kinda dumb power is ‘Charisma’, Sixer?” swam before his mind’s eye-but he couldn’t quite remember the face, or associate a name with it-just that it had been...someone very important.

 

A sweaty hand tugged his sleeve.

“Grunkle Ford?”  Dipper’s voice was cracking with anxiety on the edges.  “Are you okay?”

Ford shook himself, and gave Dipper a reassuring smile.

“Yes, I’m all right.  Just...sort of remembering something.  But it’s gone now.”

Dipper frowned in disappointment.  “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”  Ford lightly touched his shoulder.  “We need to stop all work for the day-and play!”

---

***

---

Soledad looked thoughtfully at the outside of the castle-specifically at the vines that had grown all over the walls, and chunks of crumpled masonry scattered around them-and wondered if the aesthetic of the creepy haunted castle worked better with or without them.

If I leave it like that, that means one less job I can make the humans do.  On the other hand, they do make the place look a lot creepier.  Decisions, decisions…

Soledad tapped his claws on the top of his cane, and his tail twitched back and forth in accompaniment with his thoughts.  He almost didn’t notice in time the brightly colored figure that was trying to sneak up on him, and barely twitched his tail to safety in time to keep Mabel and her pig from pouncing on it.

“Hey!” Mabel protested, sitting up and pouting at him.  “You spoiled our game!”

“Your game?” Stan demanded.  “Excuse me , ya little gremlin, but my tail is not a toy!  Go play over there or somethin’, I’m tryna think!”  He gestured over to the farthest part of the yard with his cane.

“But I wanna catch your tail!  It looks so soft and fluffy!”  Mabel tried to grab the tip of it again, but Soledad flicked it out of reach with a small growl of annoyance, before stalking away.

 

Undeterred, the kid and her pig chased after him, making ineffective grabs at his tail.

Soledad tried to keep watch on her out of the corner of one eye, and look at the castle with the other-it was about as easy as it sounds.

After a while the pig got bored, and wandered off to graze on a patch of grass nearby, but Mabel continued trying to grab his tail as he stomped around the perimeter of the castle, making mental notes about possible attractions and stuff.  She was getting really creative about it, too-she’d climb onto one of the nearby fallen rocks and try to dive bomb him, or crawl behind one of the nearby bushes and jump out at him, or even crawl through the grass as low as possible, apparently thinking that her bright pink sweater somehow camouflaged well with the greenery.

Soledad was mortified to find himself trying not to smile as Mabel got more ambitious, and at the expression of grim determination on her little face as she snatched at his tail, and he was forced to dodge and step from side to side just to keep it out of her reach.

 

“I’m gonna get your tail one way or another-you might as well surrender now!” Mabel cried, charging at him for what had to be the twentieth or thirtieth time.

And at that, he decided that enough was enough.

Soledad twisted to the side so she smacked into his hip-and then, unexpectedly, he seized her by the arms and lifted her into the air, flipping her upside down.

Mabel let out a startled squeal, which quickly turned into helpless giggling when he grabbed her ankles in one paw, and with the other paw (barely remembering in time to be careful, since he had claws and she had soft squishy flesh) began squeezing and squishing her belly.

“It’s you who needs ta surrender!” Soledad growled playfully, wiggling his fingers up and down her ribs.

“NEVER!  My will is unbreakable-eek!”  Mabel thrashed when he found what was apparently her weak spot.

Soledad grinned, and continued his merciless display of tickling until she finally gasped, “Okay, okay, I give up!”

---

***

---

The torment stopped instantly, and Soledad lowered Mabel back to the ground, turning away while she lay there and let the redness fade from her cheeks.

“Let that be a lesson ta you: if ya mess with a guy’s tail, you gotta-yowp!”

“Ha!  I told you I would get your tail!” Mabel crowed, holding onto it for all she was worth.

 

The next tickle attack she received, which left her an exhausted, giggling mess for at least five minutes, was so worth it.

Chapter 18: Another deal, another dream

A few hours later, Dipper and Ford were startled out of their campaign by the sound of the library door being thrown open, followed by Dipper being picked up by his vest and tucked under one of Soledad’s meaty arms; then the beast lifted Ford by the back of his coat, and carried both of them out of the room.

“Wait!” Dipper protested, kicking and squirming, “We were just about to start fighting the Undead Goblin Army-”

“Nope.  Eat now, smarty-pants nerd game later.”

“Oh come on!” Ford protested with equal fervor.  “You can’t disrupt the campaign-”

“Nope.”

Both of them sulked all the way to the dinner table.

 

Tonight’s dinner was a large leg of meat; Ford thought it might be venison based on the smell.  Soos was sprawled next to the table, gnawing on another leg that appeared to be the twin of the one they were being served, and Wendy had a smaller piece of meat for herself that she was dedicatedly gnawing on.  María was eating hers more daintily out of a small china dish in front of the stove, while Pacifica was perched on the windowsill next to the washbasin, pecking in quick little bites from a pile of wild berries.

Ford could see that all these pieces of meat appeared to have been torn from the body they once belonged to, rather than cut, so he suspected this was something Soledad had hunted himself rather than stealing.  And, apparently, he had also cooked it himself, judging by the small cluster of gray hairs stuck to the piece of bone sticking out of one end.  A little disconcerting...but it smelled appetizing enough.  As long as it was relatively sanitary, he wouldn’t object to eating it.

To his surprise, when Soledad had deposited him and Dipper in their seats, rather than retreating to do whatever it was he usually did while they were eating, after a hesitant moment in which he tapped his claws together in a way that seemed almost nervous, he sat down in the final chair and grabbed one of the plates, giving all of them a defensive glare when he saw he was being stared at (and in Mabel’s case, that she was trying to muffle an excited squeal behind her hands).

Finally Ford just looked away and began dishing up portions of the meat like it was no big deal.  To his slight relief, he noticed that the meat at least seemed to have been cooked decently well.  Again he was surprised, since he was pretty sure Soledad was used to eating it raw, but for once decided to keep his mouth shut.

 

As soon as he got his plate returned to him, Soledad just picked the meat up in one massive paw and ripped a bite out of it, apparently oblivious to the chunks and bits of juice that started dripping into the fur around his mouth.

Seeing the savage dining display reminded Ford that for all his awkwardness and occasional friendliness, this creature who was sitting with them was still a seven-foot-tall tiger; a small chill went up his spine at the thought of what it would be like for himself-or worse, the children-to be at the receiving end of those fangs.

“Soledad!” Mabel scolded, startling Ford out of his musings, “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to eat with your hands?”

Soledad set down the meat, licking away some of the drippings from his chin before swallowing.  “What else am I supposed ta do, kid?  I’m not really built for using these things.”  He picked up one of their knives clumsily between his claws.  Then, without noticeable effort, he bent it right in half before dropping it back onto the table and going back to eating.

Ford got another small chill-but he also had to concede that Soledad had a point.  It would probably be very awkward for him to try using cutlery with the form he had, especially when eating like-well, eating like an animal had to come a lot more easily.

He was startled out of his thoughts when Mabel said, “You know what, that actually looks kind of fun!”  She put down her silverware and picked up her meat with her hands, before taking a big bite out of it.

“Mabel!” Ford started to admonish, even as she savagely ripped out a chunk and began chewing it with gusto.  She swallowed, and grinned at them.

“C’mon, guys, it tastes better like this!”

Dipper looked a little reluctant...but then he gave it a shot.  He gave his best vicious growl as he tried to pull apart the venison with his teeth, making his sister and the beast both snort with laughter.

...Ford could see that he’d lost this fight.

“Just make sure you all wash your hands afterwards,” he said at last, before cutting off another bite and neatly slipping it into his mouth.

Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed like they all looked a little disappointed that he wasn’t joining in on their savage eating.

---

When they’d cleaned most of the flesh off the bone as best they could, Soledad picked it up and snapped it in two with a quick jerk of his paws; he tossed one half of the bone to Wendy, who immediately began gnawing on it, and passed the other half down to Soos, who had migrated to a spot right at the foot of his chair.

“Just how strong are you?” Ford couldn’t help asking in amazement.

Soledad shrugged.  “Strong enough.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.  What’s the hardest thing you’re capable of breaking, or at least bending?”  He leaned in to examine the beast’s paws more closely; Soledad just put the tip of one claw to his forehead and shoved him back.

“Geez, you always this nosy?”

“My life’s work is studying things that are strange or unusual!” Ford protested.  “Things like you!”

The beast’s expression immediately changed from what Ford internally categorized as ‘mildly annoyed’ to ‘actually angry,’ and pushed back his chair.  Then he stomped over to the wash basin, plunging his paws into it and cleaning them off.

It wasn’t until he saw the somewhat reproachful looks the children (and Wendy) were giving him that Ford realized maybe he could have phrased that differently.

“Wait,” he finally said.  “I’m sorry, please don’t leave.”

Soledad paused in the doorway.

“...I just meant that I think you’re very interesting, and I would like to learn more about you.  Please.”

 

Soledad glanced over his shoulder at him, and seemed to struggle with indecision for a moment, before sighing and returning to the table.

“Fine.  You can ask me one question about myself for every time you eat three square meals in a row.  And no, a slice of bread and some coffee doesn’t count.”

That was not the sort of bargain Ford had been expecting (not that he’d been expecting a bargain at all, but still); he spluttered indignantly.  “Why can’t it be one question per meal?”

“Cuz I don’t trust you ta keep to a consistent eating schedule otherwise.”

“What kind of a deal is that, though?!  What do you gain out of it?!”

“I get a worker who’s actually takin’ good care of himself, so I don’t haveta worry about him collapsing and dying on the job.”  Soledad folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.  “Take it or leave it.”

For a moment Ford wracked his brains, trying to figure out some kind of loophole or if the beast could have some kind of hidden agenda beyond what he was saying...but finally let out a reluctant sigh.

“Fine.”  He held out his hand to him, and the beast shook it with a smirk.

“Can I negotiate my bathing schedule like that?” Dipper asked hopefully.

“No.”

“What?!  Why?!”

“You haven’t earned it, squirt.”  Soledad leaned over and flicked him in the forehead.

Dipper sulked as he washed his hands, and only brightened up when Ford invited him to finish up their campaign before bedtime.

---

The others-animals included-followed them to the library, where they all spent a relatively peaceful evening.

While Dipper and Ford played, Mabel found a selection of (somewhat incongruous compared to what other genres were on the shelves) romance novels-Ford wondered if they weren’t a little too adult for her, but then got distracted by the game and forgot to worry about it-and picked one out, before settling herself in one of the comfier armchairs to read it.  María curled up on her lap, Waddles stretched out under her feet, and Pacifica perched on the top of the chair, craning her neck like she was reading over Mabel’s shoulder.

Soledad sat down in the other armchair, and produced a ball out of one of his pockets, which he kept throwing for Soos or Wendy to chase down-a few times the dog ended up crashing into bookshelves, but fortunately not hard enough to knock any of them over.

 

The part of Ford that wasn’t focused on rolling the dice and describing attack strategies wondered at what point he’d gone from “intimidated by this giant gray talking tiger who was holding his family hostage” to “arguing with him at the dinner table and comfortably playing games in his library.”  Heck, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d played games, period, except that he thought maybe he used to play Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons with Fiddleford and Tate, long ago…

The reminder of his friends made a small, uncomfortable rock of guilt form in his stomach as he realized how long it had been since he’d thought about them; he’d been so absorbed in this new mystery that he’d sort of forgotten how worried they must be.

I hope they got our note...maybe I should have Wendy take them another one.

But he would have to write it later; for now, the Undead Goblin Army was marching against the ragtag bunch of misfits Dipper’s character had befriended, with their strange, golden idol egging them on, and they had to be defeated at all costs.

---

***

---

That night, Dipper had almost no trouble falling asleep.  He hadn’t expected it, but almost as soon as he burrowed under the covers and stretched out, he was already falling asleep, with his head filled with images of goblins and ogre-nadoes, and feeling far more at ease than he’d been since he first came to this castle.

---

Dipper was wandering up the long, winding stairs, with an urgent feeling in his heart, like he needed to find something important.  Even though he and his family hadn’t reached this part of the castle yet in their cleaning schedule, he knew that it-whatever it was-was somewhere down here...something that would give him the answers he was looking for-

There!

Off to the side of this next flight of stairs, he found the beginning of a long stone hallway.  It was a little dark and ominous-looking, but that only aroused Dipper’s sense of adventure; he stepped off the stairs, and in a minute he was striding down the corridor.  He didn’t know how or why, but he knew that he’d get his answers at the end of it.

There were no doors on either side of the corridor, just stone walls with the shredded remains of what had once been fancy-looking tapestries, and crumbling braziers that must have once been for holding candles or torches.  Just like everything else, this place had gone to rack and ruin-but then, at the end of the hallway, a pale blue light drew his attention.

 

Dipper hurried towards it, and saw that it was a door.  An enormous, iron door, with a curious symbol in the middle that looked like an upside down triangle, with a pale blue circle in the center of it.  The circle was glowing faintly, with a light that seemed to beckon him closer.  Dipper stood in front of the door in curious delight, wondering what could possibly be inside, if it was even unlocked.  It looked pretty sturdy-

Open it.

The boy jumped, and looked around nervously.  Who’d said that?

Open the door.  Come on, you know you want to.

Where was the voice even coming from?  It almost sounded like...it was behind the door.

Just for a second, Pinetree.  You wanna know this dump’s secrets, right?  Well, open this door, and you can learn them all-heck, you can learn all the secrets of the UNIVERSE!

The word ‘universe’ echoed slightly, making a small shiver run down Dipper’s spine.  He pulled back a little bit uncertainly...but then curiosity drove him to lift his hand again, reaching towards the door’s handle-

 

-and another one of those terrible roars startled Dipper awake.

---

For once, he was the only one disturbed by Soledad’s weird nocturnal habits; Ford just grumbled and burrowed a little further into the pillow, and Mabel moaned in her sleep and hugged Waddles more securely (Ford had tried to stop her from letting the pig join them in the bed, but just like his efforts to keep Soos out had failed, he had eventually given up).

Dipper shivered, and brushed his sweaty bangs back off his forehead as he sat up.  That...he usually didn’t have dreams that vivid, not unless they were about his parents.  What the heck was that?

Grandpa had said that some people believed dreams could tell the future, or that it was your spirit leaving your body and going on some kind of adventures.  He didn’t know if he believed that, since usually your dreams were about things like being chased by a giant pair of shoes made of celery or something equally ridiculous, but this one had felt a lot more...real than that.

It was a long time before he was able to relax enough to go back to sleep.

---

***

---

Seriously?  You were this close , and you had ta wake up?!

...Never mind, it’s fine, I can work with this.

The seed’s been planted, and Pinetree knows where to look.

Just gotta be patient a little longer, and pull a few more strings and I’ll be outta this dumb deal once and for all.  And good ol’ Six-Fingers will be back in my clutches where he belongs.

Chapter 19: So close

He was running on the beach again, hearing a young, happy voice after him, calling to wait up; the air smelled like the sea, and all around he could hear seagulls crying and waves crashing on the shore.  He had no idea where he was going or why; it barely mattered.  He was just looking forward to another day of freedom and adventure.

 

“YOU RUINED MY LIFE!”

“YOU RUINED YOUR OWN LIFE!”

Tussling-fighting back and forth in the dark-rage burning in his heart-wanted to make his opponent hurt for what he’d done to him-

 

A burst of yellow a high nasal voice Well, well, well, looks like time’s up brainiac-

Screaming, begging

You can have me instead

Wait, what?

Rage gone fear gone both replaced by determination

You can do whatever you want to me just never hurt him again

Cackling laughter

Now why would I wanna do that, little fish?  Why would I trade this brilliant, gullible little nerd, who could give me everything I want and more, for a pathetic loser like you?  Sounds like a pretty stupid deal ta me.  Besides, he’s mine -from now until the end of time, like he promised.

...Yeah, I guess it’s for the best.  You probably couldn’t handle me.

WHAT.

I don’t think you could hurt me if ya tried , ya little weirdo.  He was always the sensitive one growing up, easily spooked, easily hurt.  And he’d believe anyone who told him he was special.  But me?  I got nerves of iron-you’d never be able ta break me down, not in a hundred years!

A growl of rage

I could turn your whole world into a LIVING NIGHTMARE if I wanted to, you pathetic meat sack!

...Suuuure.  Yeah, I’m real intimidated by you and your cute little baby feet.

Oh, you WILL be, [a name, but somehow the words fizzle out before he can really hear them].  It’s a DEAL!

And then the pain.

---

Soledad woke up with a roar of terror, and toppled over backwards, sending his chair to the floor with a crash.

For a moment he just lay there, breathing frantically and trying to collect himself, and feeling the dampness in the fur around his eyes.  Finally, though, as the most vivid parts of the dream faded out of reach, he rolled to the side and scrubbed a paw over his face, before trying to tilt the chair back up until he saw that he’d smashed it.

With a tired sigh Soledad scooped up the remains and tossed them to the pile of other broken things in the far corner of his room, before just scooping up the journal off the table he’d been sitting at and flopping down on the large pile of ripped-up blankets and animal skins which served as his bed whenever he slept here.

 

There was very little light aside from the strange glowing moss that grew here and there on the walls, but that was no obstacle to Soledad’s vision.  He just stared down at the journal, trying to decipher the ruined pages with help from the papers he’d gathered from the library.

Once in a while, he could decipher a somewhat legible word or phrase, or he’d find a drawing of one of the weird critters that lived out in the woods around here.  He’d even found a passage that was probably about those KillBillies that he’d had to save Ford from, since it had a picture of one of the little bas- beggars grinning at him and making his neck fur stand on end just looking at it.

Soledad had spent a few hours after everyone else was in bed trying to decipher some of the stuff at the beginning of the journal, until he’d eventually fallen asleep at the table.  So far, he didn’t feel any closer than he’d been when he’d first seen this thing in the kids’ hands and realized it was important.

With a sigh, the beast began flipping through the pages, trying his hardest not to tear them with his claws-until he came across one that made him stop short.

He was sure he’d flipped past this spot before, and it had just been the same blurry, torn-up mess as the rest of this thing; now, though, he could clearly read the passage and see the drawing that accompanied it, of a cage whose bars had been ripped apart:

---

The specimen has escaped.

I found my assistant and his son barricaded in a room near where the cage was kept, with deep claw marks dug into the door where the beast had tried to force its way in before eventually giving up and (I suspect) fleeing for the forest.  It took me some time to convince him that it was really me, time which could have been spent coming up with a plan to recapture it, but to be fair F was in a state of incoherent terror and not capable of rational thought.

 

Note to self: teach him some of my meditation and calming techniques so a crisis like this won’t happen again.  For heaven’s sake, his son was handling the situation better than he was!

---

Soledad looked down at his claws and flexed them with a small, pensive frown, as his mind raced.  Could it be…?

He thought he’d been kept in a cage at one point; he could remember being surrounded by large iron bars, people standing in front of them watching him.  Yeah, maybe he’d broken out of it because he was being studied by whoever the author of this thing was, and escaped into the forest, and-

...And then what?

 

Soledad turned the page, in the somewhat futile hope that maybe there’d be more stuff that had suddenly decided to be legible.  It hadn’t, but he did notice that on some of the pages after that entry there were distinct red-brown stains that he was pretty sure weren’t tomato juice.

And, worse, about halfway through the journal the writing just...stopped.

Soledad felt his stomach clench.  He liked to think that this wasn’t implying what he thought it was...but what if he’d come back here later and-sure, he’d never found any human bodies lying around the castle, not even since the earliest thing he truly remembered, when he woke up in the hallway of this place and saw his big gray paws for the first time, but what if he’d thrown it out in the forest or something, and then just-blacked out?  Si-someone had told him once that the mind was capable of doing stuff like that, after it'd had a really bad shock.

 

For the twentieth time he considered asking Ford and the kids for help.  They were all pretty smart people, maybe they’d be able to get some answers out of this thing.

But therein also lay the problem, he mused miserably, ears drooping.  Because what if the answers turned out to be...something he really didn’t wanna know?  What if he was some kinda lab specimen who’d ended up murdering his creator or captor or whatever and taken over his home?

And either way, he got the feeling that if he gave this back to them...everything would change.  And Soledad wasn’t sure if he was ready to deal with that, if the change would be a bad one.

---

With a miserable wuffling noise, the beast got up, leaving the journal in the nest, and wandered over to a rain barrel he kept in the corner, and dunked his head in it for a minute to try and relieve the throbbing in his skull.  When he finally lifted his head, he shook it back and forth, spraying water everywhere, and then padded back to his nest, which he flopped into face-first.

He didn’t have any more dreams that night.

Notes:

...And yet so far.

Chapter 20: Mystery Twins investigation impeded

Notes:

Coming up with decent chapter titles is hard sometimes.

Both Dipper and Soledad seemed kinda moody the next day.

It had been a while since Mabel had seen her brother like that; she cast concerned glances back and forth between them as she ate her breakfast, noticing that neither of them looked like they’d slept well.  Dipper had dark circles under his eyes, and a few times the forkfuls of scrambled eggs he scooped up would miss his mouth and fall under the table for either Soos or Waddles to gobble up.  Similarly, Soledad’s head fur was an absolute mess, all tangled and matted on one side, and he didn’t seem to notice that his claws were digging grooves into the tabletop.

Ford didn’t notice any of this, because he was busy designing a new dungeon for his and Dipper’s nerd game in between bites.

Mabel’s tummy tied itself in an uncomfortable knot.  Her inner something’s-wrong alarm bell was ringing like mad, but she didn’t know why , or how to fix it.

 

When everyone had finished eating Soledad straightened up in his chair, clearing his throat and visibly locking away whatever was bothering him.

“Mabel, Dipper, you’re on stairwell duty today.  Fix the steps so people can walk on ‘em without breaking their necks or whatever; you’ll find the stuff for it in the hallway.”

Dipper frowned.  “Don’t you need to be part of the Guild of Masons to do that kind of work?  You know, have training and stuff?”

“No.  Now quit whining.  Old Nerd-” Ford raised his head from looking down at the graph paper and gave Soledad an affronted stare which didn’t faze him in the least- “you’re gonna put that big brain ta good use and help me make some decisions about the layout of this joint.”

“Must I?” Ford asked with a long-suffering sigh.

Soledad smirked.  “Yup.”

Ford grumbled, but then just took his dishes over to be washed.

---

“...Dipper?  You okay?” Mabel asked after they’d been working for about half an hour in silence.  They were using a bucket of clay to fill in the cracks around and under some of the stone steps and cement them more firmly in place, with Soos and a reluctant Pacifica helping out as best they could.

Dipper sighed and rubbed his eyes.  “Yeah, I just...had kind of a weird dream.”

Mabel lifted up a stone and smeared some clay underneath it, before laying it back down.  “Yeah?  What kind of dream?”

Dipper shrugged and lifted another loose stone, straining a little under the weight as Soos smeared down some clay.

Mabel hesitated.  “...Was it another nightmare about Mom and Dad?”

The stone nearly slipped free of his hands and smashed Soos’s nose before he caught it in time.  Dipper stared at her wide-eyed, and stammered out a very coherent “Uh-what?”

“It’s okay.  I have them too.”  She leaned her shoulder against his.

Mostly, when they came, she found herself dreaming about the mass holes in the ground where the plague victims were thrown as a group, before the bodies were burned to try and keep the illness from spreading; she’d be standing at the edge of one of them, watching the hungry hungry flames rising.  And then, in the middle of the fire she’d hear the voices of her parents and grandfather, calling for her to come join them there, because it was nice and warm and they missed her.

Sometimes Mabel would try to run away, clamping her hands over her ears, but like it always was in dreams, the faster she tried to run the slower she moved, so she would still have their voices ringing in her ears when she woke up.

Other times, she would actually walk around the pit trying to figure out where their voices were coming from, and then a fiery skeleton hand would lunge out of the flames and grab her, pulling her in just in time for her to wake.  She wasn’t sure which version was worse.

Judging from the way Dipper occasionally made unhappy sounds in his sleep, she suspected he had the same kind of nightmares.

 

Dipper shook his head.  “It wasn’t about that-this time.”  The small, vulnerable admittance that he did occasionally have nightmares made Mabel wrap her arm around him and give a gentle squeeze.  He leaned into it as he put the stone back in place, before getting up and climbing to the next part of the stairwell, where it opened up onto another floor.  “It was...about wandering around the castle.  I was looking for something, and I found a corridor that looked like-”

He glanced to the left, and froze, eyes wide.

“...Just like this one.”

 

Mabel dropped the trowel she’d been holding and scrambled up the stairs to her brother’s side, and peered into the corridor he’d discovered.

It looked just as old and creepy as the rest of the castle did, with ripped-up stuff hanging off the walls and a lot of dust everywhere...but something about it seemed different in a way Mabel didn’t understand, but that made goosebumps rise on her arms.

She couldn’t see the end of the hallway, because it had been caved in: the walls and ceiling had all been smashed in, blocking it off with a pile of rubble.

Dipper frowned, and took a step forward.

“...In my dream, there was a weird door back there, and something was telling me to open it,” he murmured aloud, sounding like he was in a trance or something.  “I-I remember that piece of tapestry right there, it looked just like that one, so I’m sure this is the right place.”  He pointed to a shredded scrap of cloth hanging on the wall next to them that, if you looked at it closely enough, appeared to have been yellow once upon a time.

Mabel, who fully believed in the possibility of dreams having meaning in reality (despite it occasionally being proven wrong, such as her learning the hard way that no, she wasn’t going to marry that cute boy she used to pick apples with during the harvest season), was as much a fan of opening mysterious secret doors as the next person.  She was still getting that icky feeling in her tummy, but…

“If it’s really back there, we’re gonna have to do a lot of digging to get it out.”

Dipper squared his shoulders, and brandished his trowel like it was a full-fledged shovel.  “Then we better get-hey!”

 

Unnoticed by either of them, Soos had come bounding up the stairs after them; as soon as he saw them stepping further down the corridor, he let out an alarmed bark, and lunged past them before spinning around and ramming his head into Dipper’s gut, shoving him back.

Dipper was slammed right onto his rear with a squawk of pain, and for a moment even had the wind knocked out of him.  Mabel went to his side, and gave Soos a scolding look.

“What’s the big idea?  We just wanna check it out!”

Soos adamantly shook his head no, and pushed them farther back, more gently this time but still very firm about it.

“Soos, get out of my way!” Dipper demanded; he managed to get to his feet, and tried to dodge past the big dog, but Soos just stepped back into his path and shoved him again.

Dipper’s eyes suddenly brightened, and he grabbed Soos around the neck, leaving a path open.  “Mabel, go!”

With a nod Mabel started to run into the right section-and got a faceful of feathers, accompanied by an ear-splitting screech.

 

She stumbled back, and Pacifica flapped her wings in an attempt to keep her balance while stopping her from going any further at the same time.  Before Mabel could regain her bearings enough to duck under her, a set of teeth clamped around the sleeve of her sweater and tugged her back next to Dipper, and Soos settled in front of them with a more adamant shake of his head no.

Dipper spluttered furiously, but Mabel couldn’t help taking a closer look at the animals.  She noticed that Soos’s fur was bristling all along his back, and Pacifica’s crest seemed a little higher than normal.

“...You’re scared of whatever’s back there, aren’t you?” she asked.

Both of them nodded, and Soos actually growled-a noise neither of the children had realized the big happy beast was capable of making.  It trailed off into a bit of a whine at the end, and he looked at them with big, pleading brown eyes.

Dipper still looked determined to try pushing past them to solve this new mystery...until Mabel put a hand on his shoulder.  He sighed, and nodded.

“...Fine.  We’ll leave it alone.”  He picked up the trowel, and turned back towards the stairs.  Mabel was the only one close enough to hear him mutter, “For now, anyway.”

---

***

---

“...And for the finishing touch, I figure we oughta put together a new door for this joint.”  Soledad glanced at the entryway, where he’d taken down the remains of both doors and hung up a thick blanket as a (not very adequate) substitute, and held up a crude drawing he’d put together for what he was imagining.  “I’m thinkin’ something real old and fancy-lookin’, with a knocker that looks kinda like a monster face-” he pointed to himself and stretched his mouth into a wide, grotesque grin- “and then put a sign above it-somethin’ like, ‘The Mystery Castle-Enter if you Daaaaare!’”  He wiggled his claws dramatically, and included a cackle of demented laughter.

Despite his distaste for this whole concept, Ford surprised himself with a snort of laughter which he quickly tried to suppress.  Judging from how Soledad was smirking at him, he had been less than successful.

“You are utterly shameless, aren’t you?” he asked.

Soledad laughed.  “You know it.”

 

Ford examined the drawing; it was better than he’d expected from someone who had trouble holding silverware properly.

“If we want to make it out of wood, it will probably require felling a few trees that are made out of the right kind of material,” he mused aloud, “unless we want to get the logs ready-made from somewhere else.”

“Eh, I can probably manage that-there’s a lumber mill I know of where they’ll have some lying around.”

...Which was a funny way of saying ‘Soledad was going to sneak over in the nighttime or whenever and steal what they needed,’ but Ford decided to let it slide.

“Then we can get the kids ta help out with putting it together and stuff-pretty sure their little hands are perfect for carving and stuff.”

“You also have no compulsions against child labor, I see,” Ford snarked.

Soledad snorted.  “Oh, lighten up, Sixer-hard work’s good for ‘em, it’ll toughen them up!  Especially Dipper!”

When there was no reply, he glanced back at Ford-and then looked at him head-on when he saw the expression on his face.  “...What?”

 

“...What did you call me?” Ford asked over the blood suddenly rushing through his ears; he didn’t know why, but hearing it had sent a chill down his spine.

Soledad blinked, and looked confused.  “...Uh-just a nickname.  Cuz of, you know-” he lifted one paw, and wiggled his fingers meaningfully, glancing down at one of Ford’s hands.  “Just seemed kinda appropriate.”

Ford looked down at his own hand, at the extra finger at the end.  It was the first time Soledad had really acknowledged their strangeness, and it was with a nickname that felt very, very familiar, like something out of his childhood.  Part of him felt like he should be offended by it, but…

“...Yes, I suppose it is.”

 

After an awkward moment of silence, Ford went back to examining the plans, while trying to fight through the throb that had started up in his temple.

He didn’t notice that Soledad had a similar pained grimace and was rubbing the side of his own head as he headed out to start getting supplies for repairing the door.

Chapter 21: Mystery Twins investigations, continued

Dipper and Mabel were not given another opportunity to go near that corridor alone.

Every time they passed it for the rest of the day, one or more of the animals was there watching them.  Even María, who usually spent the day curled up by the stove or wherever there was a beam of sunlight, took up sentry duty in front of the corridor once, and gave Dipper a scolding look when she saw him eyeing it.  The boy grumbled to himself about the unfairness of it all, but decided for the time being to let it go, wait for them to let their guard down so he could investigate without getting caught, and until then focus on one of the other mysteries this castle contained: where Soledad was hiding Grunkle Ford’s journal.

 

It was unlikely that the beast would keep it in one of the rooms that they were supposed to clean, since a) there would be more of a risk of them finding it while cleaning, and b) there was usually so much dust coating the floors that there would be evidence he’d been there.  So that probably narrowed it down to the rooms that they’d already cleaned, or to some little cranny in a different part of the castle that they hadn’t found yet.  Or, after some thought, an even better potential hiding place occurred to him.

After they’d gotten one flight of stairs done and gone to the kitchen to grab some lunch, Dipper waited until they were alone and turned to Mabel.

“You wanna come to the library with me when we’re done eating and help me look for Grunkle Ford’s journal?”

Mabel blinked.  “The library?”

“Yeah!  What better place to hide a book than in a place that’s filled with them?”  Dipper’s voice cracked with excitement.  “It’s just the kind of idea Soledad would come up with!”

Mabel rubbed her chin thoughtfully.  “It is a pretty sneaky idea,” she agreed at last.  “And if there’s one thing Soledad’s good at, it’s being sneaky.”

---

***

---

About a mile away, at the town lumber mill, the front door smashed open; Soledad burst out of it, lurching for the woods as best he could while heaving a set of large wooden planks over his shoulder.  There was a long scratch ripping open the front of his clothes, and a bloody wound on his chest, but it thankfully wasn’t too deep; he’d just been caught off guard for a second, that’s all.

Despite the load he was carrying, he managed to get to the safety of the tree line just before a massive bear of a man, almost a match for Soledad himself in size and strength, came staggering to what remained of the door.  There was a large lump on his forehead, and an axe clenched in one giant paw with a streak of blood on the blade.

“YOU GET BACK HERE, THIEF!” he bellowed, shaking his fist in rage.  “NOBODY STEALS FROM MANLY DAN AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!  WHEN I FIND YOU I’M GONNA SHOW YOU HOW A REAL MAN FIGHTS!”

Maybe it was just his imagination, but he almost thought he heard a voice yell back, “Try and catch me, sucker!”

---

***

---

After they’d finished eating, the kids headed for the library and began combing the shelves for any sign of the precious journal.

“Remember, he could’ve put a fake cover on it or something, so you gotta look carefully,” Dipper admonished as he struggled to reach one of the taller shelves.

“Don’t worry, bro-bro, with your brains and my razor-sharp focus there’s no way we won’t find-ooh, this looks like a good one!”  Mabel pulled the book she’d just found further off the shelf, and stared with thirsty eyes at the handsome young men adorning the cover.  “Oh man, I would love to see either of these guys shirtless!  Or-what about both at once!”  She did a little shiver that was a mixture of prepubescent intrigue and delight.

A hand cuffed the back of her head.  “Mabel!”

“Ahem!”  Mabel tucked the book under her arm, blushing.  “Sorry, sorry!  Focusing!  Finding journal!  Definitely not fantasizing about cute boys!”

 

They searched the shelves for what felt like hours, without success.  Dipper pulled out every book, one at a time, to see if it was the journal, even if it was clearly slimmer or shorter than the original volume; he knocked on the backs of the shelves in search of more hidden compartments like the one that had the DD&VMD dice hidden behind it; heck, he even tried to lift up the carpet to see if there were any trapdoors beneath it, only to find in his disappointment that it was firmly nailed in place and there were no loose panels or anything.

At last, with a frustrated sigh, he slumped down at the table in the middle of the room and leaned his chin on his fists.

Mabel sat down next to him, setting aside her new book, and leaned her shoulder against his.

“It was a good idea,” she said at last.  “Soledad’s just even better at hiding that thing than you thought.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not giving up,” Dipper said firmly.  “If it’s not in here, then it’s gotta be somewhere else in the castle that we haven’t thought of yet.”

“...Maybe if we just ask him, and explain why we need it, he’ll give it back to us,” Mabel suggested.

Dipper considered the idea doubtfully.  “...I dunno, Mabel.  If he was gonna give it back on his own, I feel like he would’ve by now.”

Mabel reluctantly conceded the point.  “What the heck would he even want with Grunkle Ford’s old journal, though?”

Dipper glared thoughtfully at the tabletop...and then his eyes widened.  “...Wait a second.  What if-”

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and began unfolding it to reveal a weird diagram he’d drawn, with sketches of the castle, the journal, Grunkle Ford, Soledad and even all the animals in different corners, and with tiny strings connecting them together.  Dipper rearranged some of the strings, in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense to Mabel but that he seemed to understand just fine; then he looked up at her with wide eyes.

“Mabel, what if Soledad is an old specimen that Grunkle Ford was studying?!”

 

“Whoa, whoa, what ?!” Mabel couldn’t help gasping.

“Think about it!  This used to be Grunkle Ford and McGucket’s home, but then something happened to make them leave, and forget all about it!  And Soledad’s exactly the kinda thing they’d be interested in studying, since he’s literally a giant talking tiger!  Maybe he, I dunno, rebelled against his creators and banished them!”  He got out of his chair and started pacing in his excitement.

“...But then what happened to make them lose their memories, and makes it so Grunkle Ford forgets about this place if he leaves?”

That drew Dipper up short; he shoved the tip of his pen into his mouth and chewed vigorously, scowling in thought.

“He doesn’t seem like he’s got any kinda powers,” Mabel couldn’t help pointing out.

“Well, he could-be hiding them really well!”

She frowned.  It did seem like a pretty good argument, and it would definitely explain a lot…  “...Maybe.  But we gotta get more proof.”

“We gotta find the jour -ach, blegh!” Dipper insisted.  Unfortunately he’d forgotten for the moment that his pen was still in his mouth, so as he started to emphasize the word ‘journal,’ he bit down too hard, so a moment later he was spitting out ink.

---

They slipped out of the library to go back to work, just in time to see Soledad stepping through the doorway lugging a whole bunch of wood on his shoulder.

Dipper’s eyes narrowed into a suspicious glare as they landed on him-which turned into a horrified gasp when the beast turned around and they saw that the fronts of his coat and shirt were both stained with blood!

“What happened?!” Mabel gasped, rushing forward.

Soledad looked confused for a moment, before glancing down at himself.  “Oh!  Uh, heh, don’t worry about it, kid, it’s nothing!”  He set down the planks and tried to draw his coat tighter around himself; but by then Soos was on the scene, and upon seeing the blood immediately tried to jump up on him with an anxious whine.

“It’s just a scratch-calm down, all of you!” Soledad protested, trying to squirm away.

“WENDY!  WE NEED BANDAGES AND DISINFECTANT!” Mabel yelled over her shoulder as she grabbed Soledad’s paw and began tugging him towards the living room, despite his being several times her size.  Despite his reservations about the beast, Dipper hurried forward to help.

There was the sound of the back door opening, and Grunkle Ford soon appeared, a handful of papers and some charcoal pencils in his hands.  “What’s going on-is that blood?!”

Soledad groaned.  “I got the stuff we need ta fix the door, and got a little scratched up in the process.  Quit makin’ a big deal out of it.”

 

In spite of his grumbling, once he was forcibly sat down and his wounds were being seen to, Soledad actually seemed to enjoy the experience a little.  He lifted his arms obediently when ordered, and other than letting out a small growl of pain when some salve was placed in the cut to keep it from getting infected he didn’t give any real protest to his treatment.

“Heh, you should’ve seen me the time I got in a fight with a giant porcupine bear,” he said with a gruff laugh as the bandages were tied off.  “That was way worse than this.”

Grunkle Ford’s head snapped up.  “You got in a fight with a porcupine bear?!”

Soledad shrugged.  “We wanted the same wild sheep-that I found first-and he had ta go an’ make it personal.”

“How did you survive?”  Grunkle Ford turned one of the pages over to the blank side, and yanked out his pen.

Soledad smirked.  “It was a fierce, heroic battle that definitely didn’t end in me runnin’ away with just a leg of the sheep and covered in quills.”

“The very specific nature of that denial makes me suspicious.”

“Shut up and listen to my story.”

And Grunkle Ford rolled his eyes, but the way he smiled as he did showed he wasn’t really annoyed.

Mabel hoped, as she listened to the equal parts horrifying and hilarious story that unfurled, that Soledad wasn’t the reason behind her grunkle’s being under an evil spell.  He was too funny, and secretly really nice and lonely under all the cranky weird grossness.

---

***

---

The automaton was almost finished; they just needed some extra metal from the town’s lumberjack/blacksmith.

Tate made sure his dad would be okay staying by himself for a little bit (he usually was, but Tate always felt worried about leaving him alone after he’d had a really bad fit), and then headed to the mill to see if Dan had any new shipments yet.

When he arrived, he found the lumberjack standing in front of the shattered remains of his door, grumbling to himself.

“Forget how to use the handle again, Corduroy?” he asked with a small chuckle.  He and Dan weren’t friends exactly, but they were at least friend ly .  Enough that Dan wasn’t afraid to do business with him, and in fact didn’t seem overly bothered by either Ford or Fiddleford the few times they interacted.  In fact, he’d been a big help in constructing their house in the first place.

Dan glared over his shoulder.  “Har har.  No, some thing broke in and stole some o’ my best oak boards earlier!”

Tate blinked.  “...Don’t ya mean some one ?”

“Nope.  Was a big critter all covered in fur, with claws and stuff.  I got in a good whack at it, but it got away-” he looked even more disgruntled at having to admit that- “and left this.”  And he reached into his pocket and pulled out a weird-looking wooden coin.

Tate took a closer look at it.  At the inscription.

And his mouth settled into a grim line.

“...You have any idea which direction this thing went afterward?”

Notes:

Oh dear. Oh d-d-d-d-dear dear.

Chapter 22: The measure of a person

Notes:

Here's a somewhat long chapter, as a reward for your patience.

At dinner, Grunkle Ford drained a bowl of soup and then cleared his throat.

“May I ask my question now?”  He held up the empty bowl as evidence of having eaten.

Soledad narrowed his eyes at him.  “Did you eat three full meals today?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the children, started to open his mouth...and then visibly changed his mind and looked down at Wendy.  “Did he?”

The fox nodded.

Grunkle Ford let out a little indignant splutter.  “You trust her word over mine?”

“And over ours?!” Dipper chimed in.

“Yup.”  Soledad smirked at them as he leaned down and scratched Wendy under the chin; she leaned into his touch, half-closing her eyes happily.  Then he glanced up at Grunkle Ford again.  “What’re ya complaining about?  Ask your question already.”

 

Grunkle Ford let out a disgruntled grumble, but finally asked, “...Where did you come from?”

Soledad straightened up in his chair, and shrugged.  “Dunno.”

Grunkle Ford frowned.  “That’s not a real answer.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t!”

“Yes it is!  Just cuz it ain’t the answer you want doesn’t make it not an answer.”  Soledad’s tail lashed at the air in agitation.

“It doesn’t tell me anything useful, though!  It’s not a fair deal if you’re not going to be honest with me in your answers-”

“I AM!”  Soledad pounded his fist on the table.

 

After a second his gaze darted towards the children, who had both flinched back the moment he raised his voice, and then he let out a deep exhale.

“I don’t...far back as I can remember, I’ve always been here.”  He glared at the tabletop.  “‘S just how it is.”

Grunkle Ford tilted his head.  “Giant talking tigers don’t just appear out of nowhere.”

“Well, this one did.”  Soledad shrugged again, before picking up an apple and sinking his fangs into it, uncaring for the amount of juice that began dripping into his chin fur.  “You can ask another question tomorrow.”

“Is there any way I can up the number of-”

“I said no more questions.”  Mabel could see Soledad hiding a bit of a smirk behind the apple.

“It’s not a question related to you , it’s a question about potentially altering the deal so I can improve my research.”

“Nope, sorry, we’re closed for the night, come back tomorrow.”

“That is not fair!”  Grunkle Ford sounded annoyed, but she could hear a hint of amusement in his tone now too.

“Life ain’t fair, Sixer.  Anyone who says otherwise has gotta be sellin’ something.”

“You can’t use that as an excuse to inhibit scientific progress!”

“Watch me.”

...And I’m sure you can guess that the argument continued in a similar vein until bedtime.

---

No...not again…

Mabel stood at the edge of a plague pit, watching the flames rising, and with the horrible smell of burning flesh in the air.

Somehow it seemed even worse than normal, more real , making her stumble away coughing in an attempt to clear the smoke from her lungs.

Before she could get too far, though, a familiar voice called to her.

“Mabel...Mabel…”

She blinked in confusion; it sounded like her mother, but...something was wrong with it.  It sounded a little...higher and reedier than she remembered-unless she’d just forgotten what her mother really sounded like by now, since it had been so long since she’d actually heard her voice-but surely she’d still be able to remember what her own mother sounded like!  She couldn’t have forgotten that already, that wouldn’t-

“Mabel!  Can you hear me, sweetie?”

“...Mom?” Mabel called back at last, tugging nervously at her sweater.

“Mabel!  Where are you?”

“I’m right here!  Where’re you?”

“I need you to come find me, Mabel!  Open the door!”

Mabel frowned.  “What door-?”

But there it was, floating in the middle of the flames.  A big iron door with a funny triangle symbol in it-like the one Dipper had talked about!

 

“It’s all right, Mabel!  Just open the door, and we’ll all be together again!”

Mabel took an inadvertent step forward-and hesitated.

“...I’m scared, Mom!  I don’t wanna get burned by the flames!”

“Don’t be scared, my little shooting star!  You’ll be fine!” her mom’s voice coaxed.  “I believe in you!”

Mabel swallowed nervously, and took another step forward-

 

And was awakened by anxious oinking, and the feeling of a tongue licking her cheek.

---

It took her a disoriented moment to realize that no, she wasn’t by the fire-she was in bed, and Waddles was leaning over her and licking her.  She pushed him off with one hand, and then sat up, before pulling her pig into her arms and burying her face in his soft chubby pink flesh.

Waddles was remarkably understanding about the situation; he just leaned against her and grunted almost gently until she sat up, wiping her face on her sleeve.

“...Sorry,” she whispered to him.  “I just-”  Her mouth trembled.  “I think Dipper’s dreams must be leaking into mine or something-do you think that’s a real thing that happens?”

Waddles tilted his head and licked her cheek again.

And then both of them jumped when another one of those awful roars came reverberating from downstairs.

 

Hearing it again confirmed to Mabel that it didn’t sound like an angry roar-or even an excited one, like how she sometimes felt the need to randomly scream for no reason after eating a lot of sugary stuff.  It sounded...upset, or even hurt.

And despite what Grunkle Ford said, the fact that Soledad kept feeling the need to make that noise night after night made her come to a decision.

“Waddles, enough is enough.  I’m gonna go see what’s wrong with him,” she whispered firmly.  She wiggled her legs out from under Soos, and tried to slide gracefully out of bed.

...Being a somewhat clumsy twelve-year-old, she instead fell out of it onto the floor, but she bounced back up again right away, and after grabbing a candle and her matches she slipped out and headed for the stairs, with her loyal pig trotting at her heels.

 

As Mabel descended to the first floor she heard a crash and some muffled words she’d never been allowed to repeat coming from the kitchen, so she decided that was the best place to look.

When she padded down the hall and peered through the entryway, sure enough, Soledad was there, shaking a bucket off his foot into the broom closet before slamming the door.  He paused and leaned against it, dragging a paw over his face-and then he saw her.

Immediately Soledad straightened up with a slight growl, until he squinted against the candlelight and peered at her face.

“What’re you doin’ up?!” he demanded.

Waddles let out a frightened squeal and hid behind Mabel, but she stood her ground.

“I had a bad dream.”

“...Oh.”  Soledad looked away awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.  Heh, maybe it was because she was tired, but he kinda looked like Grunkle Ford when he did that.

Mabel took a small step forward.  “...Why’re you awake?  Did you have a bad dream too?”

Soledad snorted, and his tail lashed the air.  “Don’t be crazy, kid, you gotta be scared o’ stuff ta have bad dreams, and I ain’t scared of anything .  I just-wanted ta go do some stargazing.”

Mabel wasn’t sure that he was telling her the truth, but all she said was, “Can I come stargaze too?”

The beast’s shoulders hunched, and he shrugged irritably.  “Do whatever you want.”

“Okay!  I wanna tell you about this book I found in the library!”  Mabel followed along behind him as he made his way towards the back door.  “It’s about these two super cute brothers who lost their mother in a house fire when the younger one was a baby that turned out to be cuz of a yellow-eyed demon thing, and now they travel around the country in a cool black carriage fighting ghosts and demons and stuff!”

Even in the faint light from her candle, she could see the corner of the beast’s mouth turn up a little.  “Heh.  Sounds like they’re livin’ the dream.”

“I know !  And I’m not sure which one I’m more in love with, Samuel or Damon!”

---

***

---

Ford woke up, and realized right away that something was wrong.

It wasn’t the fact that it was still dark, though that was possibly part of it.  He squinted through the darkness, trying to see if there was someone hiding in the shadows and that was what had woken him up.  He couldn’t hear any extra breathing, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.  Instinctively his arms tightened around Dipper and-

And-

And there was no Mabel.

 

Ford sat up, grabbing his glasses and slipping them on before groping around for the candle-

Which was also missing.

...It could mean that she’s just gotten up to use the bathroom , the logical part of his brain pointed out above the frantic pounding of his heart.  You’re overreacting.

...It was probably right, but he decided to go look for her anyway, just in case.  He began slowly sliding out of the bed-

“Grunkle Ford?  Wha’s goin’ on?”

Dipper sat up, rubbing groggily at his eyes.  In an instant Soos was awake too, and upon seeing Ford felt the inexplicable need to sit up and begin licking his ear.

“Ugh, get off, dog, why must you feel the need to do that?”  Ford tried and failed to push him off, and reached over to squeeze Dipper’s shoulder; it took him a moment to find it in the dark, but finally he did.  “It’s all right, my boy, go back to sleep, I’m just going to find your sister.”

“Mabel?  Why-where is she?”  Instantly Dipper sounded more awake-and more worried.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.  But I’m sure she’s fine.”  Ford released him and began groping his way to the door while trying not to stub his toes.

Despite his words, a few seconds later Dipper was at his side, as was Soos, tail thwacking against Ford’s shins.

Ford decided it wasn’t worth the argument, and just opened the door, using the faint light seeping through the windows to find the stairs.

 

When they reached the ground floor Soos sniffed the air, then let out a low bark and went trotting off towards the back door, glancing over his shoulder at them like he wanted them to follow.

While, admittedly, Ford was aware that he wasn’t the brightest dog in the world, his nose did seem to be as good as any other canine’s, so he and Dipper obeyed the unspoken command.

It turned out to have been the right decision; to Ford’s relief, he could make out the form of his niece sitting next to the well, with the towering shadow of Soledad by her side, rapt in conversation.

 

“Mabel?” Dipper called, walking ahead towards his sister.

“Oh, hey, Dipper!  Hey Grunkle Ford!”  She waved to them as they got close.  “We’re looking at constellations, and I was telling Soledad all about my perfect wish that I wanna make if we see any shooting stars!”  An odd note entered her voice for a moment at the last part, but she seemed to shake it off quickly enough.

“...Doesn’t telling people about your wishes mean they don’t come true?” Dipper asked, sitting down next to his sister.

“I haven’t actually made the wish yet!” Mabel said with a triumphant grin.  “Besides, it’s too beautiful not to share with everyone!”

Soledad snorted, and Ford couldn’t help making a similar noise as he perched on the edge of the well.  He vaguely noticed that the other animals were here too, all crowded around their master as per usual; Soos had already flopped down with his head on the beast’s legs, sighing loudly.

“It’s all about her wantin’ ta fight some dark witch queen thing and rescue her true love or somethin’,” Soledad rumbled.

“No no no , you need to tell them all the stuff that comes first!  About how he’s a prince, or a merman, or a merman prince, and how we meet at a deep pool hidden in the forest, and he got trapped there after an accident stranded him far away from his home and family-”

The backstory went on for...a while.  Ford wasn’t sure he understood most of it, but there was a general theme of Mabel fawning over this fantasy boy with all the prepubescent fervor at her disposal.

“...and then we get married and live happily ever after, either in his palace under the sea or in a palace on land cuz we found a magic spell to make him human!” she proclaimed at last, throwing her hands in the air with glee.  “And it’s all thanks to the power of true love, and believing in myself!!”

“...Very creative, Mabel,” Ford said at last.

Dipper startled, and sat up straighter with a yawn.  “Uh?  Are you finished?”

“I’m unappreciated in my time,” she grumbled.

 

For a minute the little group sat and watched the stars in silence.  Ford was mortified to realize that it had been ages since he had last taken the time to sit and watch them; even back home, he had usually been too wrapped up in his studies to even think about having a quiet moment like this.  Probably because having the opportunity for quiet philosophical moments often led to him trying to remember, and winding up with a splitting headache as a result.

Ford looked up at the sky, at the seemingly endless number of stars sparkling in the darkness, and tried to ignore the slight throbbing that arose at how he could faintly recall that sight being accompanied by the splashing of waves…

“What about you, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel’s voice cut through his thoughts.  “If you could wish for something on a shooting star, what would it be?”

Getting my memory back.  Finding my journal.  Figuring out what secrets this castle-and Soledad-are hiding.

“...Getting answers to life’s most important questions.”

“ Nerd !” Soledad pretended to cough into his paw.  Without thinking about the action, Ford reached over and punched the beast in the arm.

A little part of him froze up in horror after realizing what he’d just done, as it reminded him that this was a very large apex predator who might not appreciate being hit-but Soledad just cackled shamelessly, and Ford allowed himself to relax.

 

“Dipper’s turn!” Mabel proclaimed, turning to her brother.  “What’s your wish, bro-bro?”

“Uh-well-I haven’t really thought about it, except for...going to a big university, studying the lore of other cultures and then traveling from town to town as a professional monster hunter.”

Ford chuckled.  “You sound so much like me when I was your age.”

“And what’re you gonna do when you find monsters?” Soledad rumbled.

Dipper froze guiltily, and glanced up at him.  “Um, not-not kill them, obviously.  Unless, you know, they’re the kind that’re actively hurting people, instead of just trying to coexist peacefully with them.  Those I would just leave alone, or-or at least help people see that they’re not a threat to them, or-”

“Good save, Dip.”  Soledad reached over and noogied his scalp.

 

“How about you?” Mabel asked when he finished.

Soledad made a confused noise.  “How about me what?”

“What’s your wish?”  She stared up at him expectantly.

Even in the darkness, Soledad looked oddly uncertain.  He scratched his ear with one paw, before turning his head away and squaring his shoulders.

“Don’t have one.”

“Oh, come on!” Mabel protested.

“I don’t think about junk like that, okay?  Gimme a break.”

“You’ve never thought about what would give you a happy ending?”

Soledad barked out a harsh, gravelly laugh.  “Kid, things like me don’t get happy endings.  We just...bide our time waitin’ for the sweet, sweet release of death.”

 

He tilted his head back up towards the stars, apparently oblivious to the traumatized expressions on the childrens’ faces.  Or, for that matter, the slightly-less-traumatized-but-still-horrified expression on Ford’s.

He’d never heard any creature, human or otherwise, have such a... bleak view of their own existence before.

It didn’t feel right.

Ford struggled for words for a minute, until he finally figured out what he wanted to say that could begin to address that: “...You’re not a thing, Soledad.”

 

The beast snorted, and even in the darkness Ford could tell he was rolling his eyes.

“No, listen to me.”  Ford got off the well, and put a hand on his shoulder.  “You are much more than that.  You have consciousness, intelligence, emotions and empathy, and those all make you a person.  ...Maybe a very large, hairy person, but still a person nonetheless.”  He gently tugged until Soledad looked in his direction.  “And as such, I think you are entitled to all the wants, needs and rewards of being one, up to and including the right to wish for a happy ending.”

Soledad stared at him, looking utterly bewildered.  His mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out, and he didn’t seem quite able to meet Ford’s eyes.

Soos and the others leaned against or climbed onto their master, clearly in agreement with the sentiment.

“Grunkle Ford’s right!” Mabel chimed in.  “You’re a person, and you can have a happy ending if you want!”  And she reached over and grabbed onto his arm, hugging it tight.

---

***

---

Soledad uttered a surprised growl, but made no attempt to shake her off.  He just turned away again, staring across the yard and blinking hard.

“...Are you okay?” he heard Dipper ask.

“I’m fine, I just got a loose eyelash!”  With the arm that wasn’t still being hugged, he swiped at his eyes briefly.  “Stupid things, they-they get loose everywhere, drives me nuts!”

Mabel giggled, and nuzzled her nose into his fur.  “Wow, you’re really soft.  You should probably brush your fur more often, though.”

“Getting brushed is for housepets,” Soledad grumbled.

But he couldn’t help thinking, as he finally pulled free of Mabel’s grasp and gave her her turn to get noogied, that he didn’t need to wonder about what he would wish for.

He already had it.

Chapter 23: Windows to the soul

Notes:

Yes, I know, I've been away from this story for far too long.
I kind of got stuck on how to write this next part, and then I lost inspiration. But I think I have it back-at the very least I'm gonna try, dang it!
(Pounds fist on table for emphasis)

At some point the children fell asleep, curled up on either side of Soledad.  Mabel nuzzled her cheek into his leg, and even in his sleep Dipper’s fingers twitched restlessly.

Soledad sighed, and scooped them up, one in each arm, before turning back towards the castle.

“C’mon, old-timer, we better get the little gremlins to bed.”

“Hey, no making snide comments about my age!” Ford protested as he stood up-and tried to ignore the way his knees and back immediately twinged in complaint.  He staggered a little bit, but then abruptly something landed under his outstretched hand, steadying him.  He glanced down to find Soos standing at his side, wagging his tail and giving him a big, drooling smile that he could make out through the darkness if he squinted.

Ford...allowed himself to feel somewhat more cordial towards the dog.

 

“Sixer, ya mind carryin’ María?” Soledad asked over his shoulder.  “Her joints’ve been actin’ up a lot, ‘specially when it gets this late.”

“Why does she get to be carried?” Ford asked, with only a little bit of genuine indignation.

“Cuz María is a lady .”

Pacifica let out an indignant-sounding squawk.

“You’ve got wings , princess, you can fly yourself.”

The peahen, however, would have none of it: she hopped onto the well, and with another flap of her wings glided up onto Soledad’s shoulder, before nipping at one of his ears.  He let out a tiny growl, but allowed her to ride him the rest of the way to the castle.

The cat wound around Ford’s legs and looked up at him with an inquiring “mrow?”; with a small, not-too-serious grumble he knelt and gently gathered her into his arms, and then followed the others indoors.

 

Once they were actually inside, Pacifica gave her master’s ear a more affectionate nip before flapping off to wherever she nested during the night.  Ford set María down, and patted her head; she purred for a moment, and then padded off in the direction of the kitchen.

As they made their way for the stairwell, Ford envied Soledad’s apparent ability to see in the dark.

“We should get some torches or lamps for the walls,” he said aloud after banging his shin on furniture for the third time, “so that the rest of us can see where we’re going more easily.”

Soledad hesitated mid-step.  “Oh.  Yeah.  You people need stuff like that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”  Ford squinted, trying to see if there were any more obstacles in his path-and was startled by a large paw gently wrapping around his wrist.

“I’ll see what I can find.”  Soledad continued hefting both children into his other arm, and led Ford towards the stairs without further incident.

---

It occurred to Ford, as they made their way up, with Soos and Waddles leading the way, that there must have been some kind of light source here at one point-another of those almost-memories that he thought he could make linger a little longer, if he tried to hold onto it hard enough…

Yes, he-he thought he could remember...that he and Fiddleford had been trying to invent a more efficient lighting system that wouldn’t need to be constantly relit or create smoke, but in the meantime they had been forced to make do with a series of lanterns that hung from brackets in the walls, a little above eye height…Fiddleford had this funny idea about somehow creating a system that harnessed lightning, which while definitely fascinating seemed a little impractical to Ford-

They reached a landing, and Ford stopped short when he glanced to the left.

 

It was a corridor, like most of the others in the castle: dusty and neglected, with everything that used to be hanging on the walls shredded and torn.  But it was different from the others in that the end of it was covered up by a pile of rubble...and that Ford knew it, far better than he had anywhere else in this place.

“Why haven’t we tried to straighten up this hallway?” he asked, taking an inadvertent step into it.

Seconds later something heavy squirmed past him and slammed into his legs, shoving him back, and Ford was annoyed with Soos again-until he saw that Wendy had joined him, and both of them were standing rigidly in his path, and through the pale beam of moonlight he could see that their fur was bristling all over.

“Soledad, what’s the matter with your-”

The big paw seized him again, this time by the back of his nightshirt, and quickly tugged him away from the corridor, and then Soledad was blocking his way too, his own fur standing on end just as much as his companions.

“We don’t go in there,” he rumbled after a second.

 

“Why not?” Ford finally managed to ask.

Soledad grimaced, and glanced over his shoulder in a way that seemed uncharacteristically... nervous .  “...It smells wrong.”

Ford tilted his head in confusion, and did a small inhale through his nostrils.  “I don’t smell anything.”

“That’s cuz your nose’s not strong enough ta pick it up,” Soledad growled.  “We just-something bad’s in there, and we don’t want anything ta do with it.  So just-stay out of there.  Please.”

...The fact that he’s willing to ask politely is serious.  And animals do seem to have a sixth sense for things that are dangerous…

But why is it dangerous?

Why do I remember it?

Because of something...whatever’s at the end of that hallway-blue?  Why am I thinking about blue?

Ford frowned in frustration, trying to will the mental image struggling in his brain to come into focus, to help him remember-

A door.

---

Stanford, I dunno if this is a good idea

It’s an adventure

For science

Stanford please-

If you’re that worried you can just leave

Hiya, smart guy!

Wanna learn all the secrets of the universe?  Just shake my hand and let me in

Wow, looks like Brainiac finally-

Mistake Mistake MISTAKE

Help

I’ve made mistakes

I don’t know who I can trust anymore

WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME

I’m giving you a chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life-

Time’s up, Fordsie!

Take me instead

No no NO my mistake mine to fix I’m not worth throwing your life away-

I don’t have a life, Poindexter.

-and just cuz you pissed me off, I’m takin’ your memories too , Stan-

“Ford!  You okay?!”

---

Ford’s eyes flew open, as two large, warm paws grabbed his shoulders, shaking him urgently.

He looked dazedly into the eyes of the beast, who was crouching a little to be on his level-and he knew him.

Just for a second-one, tiny, microscopic fraction of a second, he seemed familiar beyond being ‘the giant talking tiger who is sort-of keeping me and my family hostage but at the same time has been not as beastly of a creature as he initially seemed, and I really hope it’s not some kind of mental or psychological ailment making me actually enjoy his presence.’  The worried dark eyes staring into his were-were-

Ford blinked, and the moment of knowing was gone.  But now he knew that at at least one time...he had known Soledad as...someone else.  And he couldn’t remember who.

 

“I-I’m fine, I just-felt a little lightheaded for a moment.”

Soledad frowned in concern, and his hold tightened a fraction.  “Maybe I should’ve carried you after all.”

“No, no, I’m fine, I promise.”  Ford looked for the children, and saw that they had been set down against Soos, who was now sprawled on the floor as a makeshift pillow, with Waddles curled up by Mabel.  Soledad finally released him, leaned down to gather them up again, and then they resumed their trip to the tower.

 

Soledad helped tuck the children in, and maybe it was his imagination but Ford thought he saw him gently caress their hair as he did so.  Then he ruffled Soos’s fur as the dog hopped up onto the bed, and headed for the door.

Before he left, though, he hesitated and glanced over his shoulder at Ford.

“...Thanks.”

Ford stopped trying to move his legs out from under Soos, and looked up at him questioningly.  “For what?”

“...Y’know.  Sayin’ I’m...that I deserve ta be a person and stuff.”  Soledad’s back hunched.

And despite his confusion and uncertainty over what he’d remembered, Ford once again felt his heart go out to the beast.  “I was just speaking the truth.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all mushy on me.”  And Soledad slipped out, shutting the door after him.

 

Ford waited until the last thuds of his paw-steps had vanished down the stairwell, and then looked down at the children nestled on either side of him.

“All right, how long have you two been awake?”

Dipper and Mabel both shifted and opened their eyes guiltily.

“...About when we stopped by the corridor,” Dipper admitted.

“I think it was when he laid us down on Soos?”  Mabel rubbed her eyes and sat up a little in bed, cuddling Waddles.

Speak of the devil, Ford glanced at the dog to make sure he was actually asleep.  His snores sounded genuine enough, at least.

He looked back at the children.  “We need to find out what’s down that corridor.  I-It triggered something, for just a moment, enough to make me remember a little.  I’m certain it will provide us with the answers we’re looking for.”

Dipper and Mabel nodded.  “Agreed.”

“The trick, of course, is coming up with a plan to reach it without the others catching us…”

---

***

---

As Soledad made his way downstairs, he mused to himself that when they had this place up and running, he was gonna have to get a tapestry or something to cover that corridor up; putting up a “Do Not Enter” sign definitely wouldn’t cut it, because that would just make tourists want to know why they shouldn’t go down there, but making it look as uninteresting as possible would work.

It always did.

 

Wendy had gone out hunting, and Pacifica was probably in her nest by now, so when he reached the kitchen the only one he had to worry about was already peacefully snoozing in her spot in front of the stove.

Soledad knelt down and gave María a gentle scratch behind the ears, then crept over to the broom closet.  He opened the door, and quietly slipped inside, shutting it behind him.

---

***

---

And somewhere, both far away and very close, a small yellow figure in formal attire rubbed his hands together gleefully.

Notes:

Oh, sorry, did you think the story was gonna be all happiness and sunshine from now on?
Whoopsie!

Chapter 24: Soledad vs. Toxic Masculinity

Over the next week, nobody even looked at the forbidden corridor, let alone tried to go into it.  They obediently did their chores, keeping the main parts of the castle clean and tidy and helping Soledad set up exhibits in the rooms that he designated the tourist areas.  They also worked together on the boards to form them into a sturdy, forbidding-looking door, with elaborate carvings sculpted into the wood and a large knocker in the middle that resembled Soledad’s head, with his teeth bared in a terrible snarl that was somewhat undermined by the large gold ring placed in his mouth (nobody asked where it had come from, but at the richest house in the village, Lord Northwest was perturbed the next day to find that one of his expensive knockers had unexpectedly gone missing).  In the evenings during dinner Grunkle Ford would take the opportunity to ask Soledad questions: how strong was he, how good was his hearing and vision, what was his jaw strength, and so on.  To no one’s surprise, Soledad was far less reticent about answering these types of questions (i.e. what he was) than ones about his past (i.e. who he was).  And at night they’d usually spend some time together in the library before going to bed.

 

Mabel turned out to be surprisingly helpful in areas like sculpting and detailing the door or putting together attractions, as she regularly enjoyed complicated arts and crafts projects and viewed working with wood or taxidermy as nothing more than a new and interesting challenge.  She would tell lots of stories and jokes as she worked, and turned out to be surprisingly good at making Soledad laugh with them.

By contrast, every time there was a chore that was more difficult or required upper body strength, chances were that Dipper was going to be the one told to do it if Ford wasn’t around to quickly step in and volunteer for the job instead.

“Dipper, there’s a bat in the kitchen!  Go get rid of it!”

“Dipper, go out back and chop some firewood!  Use this axe that I definitely purchased by legal means!”

“Dipper, these pots needa be scrubbed!  Put those scrawny arms ta use, and there’d better not be a spot left on them when I come check on you!”

He tried to protest the unfairness of this multiple times, especially since Soledad was more than strong enough to do the jobs himself and he never seemed to make Mabel do them, but all he got in response was usually something along the lines of, “Life ain’t fair, now hop to it.”

 

The fact that his nightmare had come back (not the one about the corridor-the other one) with a vengeance was not improving his mood.

 

It was the first time he’d had the nightmare since he first came to this castle; he had not missed it.  But he suspected that its newfound recurrence had something to do with the fact that the night they’d gone stargazing, it had occurred to him after they finished talking about their wishes that neither he nor Mabel had said that they would wish for their parents to be alive again.

As soon as he realized this, Dipper felt a pit of shame open in his chest.  Did that mean he’d stopped loving them as much as he used to?  Was he forgetting about them?  How could he have been so selfish as to think about his stupid academic aspirations, instead of his family?

That very night, after they finished coming up with their plan and fell asleep, he’d been pulled back into the same nightmare: seeing his parents’ and grandfather’s lifeless bodies, slowly sitting up and asking him why he’d lived instead of them.  Saying that it should have been him, because of how weak he was.

Dipper had never been so glad to have Pacifica wake him up with her screeching.

They had returned sporadically ever since, leaving Dipper in a near-constant state of exhausted irritability that he suspected he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding from his family, since they kept giving him concerned looks and asking if he was okay, no matter how often he tried to assure them that he was fine , and to quit fussing over him.

Hoping maybe if he said it often enough he’d believe it.

---

“Dipper!”

Dipper groaned, and reluctantly headed in the direction of the beast’s voice.  Here we go again .  From the moment he got up he’d been ordered to clean out some of the gutters, help Wendy and María catch rats in the kitchen (and he’d been lucky to avoid getting bitten, because he was pretty sure the little beasts had rabies), and his arms were still sore from chopping more firewood.

If he tries to make me do one more impossible chore I am putting my foot down!  I’m tired, and my hands are sore, and I’m not gonna stand for this one more-

He found Soledad standing at the foot of the stairs, with one big foot planted on the scattered pieces of an enormous, rusty suit of armor.

“Found this, and I think it’d look cool ta set it up in the weapons room.  Polish it and make it all clean, then go set it up by the doorway.”  He must have seen the look on Dipper’s face, because he smirked and tilted his head.  “Oh, lighten up, kid.  It’ll be good fer you ta get a few muscles into those weak little arms of yours.”

 

Weak.

The word was like a punch in the chest, completely blowing away the protest about his knowing absolutely nothing about polishing armor that had been building in his throat.

Dipper let out a small, choked noise, fighting to push down the urge to scream, and instead feeling a far worse reaction starting to build up inside, with his eyes growing hot and a throbbing sensation rising just behind them to accompany the feeling of a big hand wrapping around his throat and squeezing-

Soledad frowned.  “...Dipper?  Hey, c’mon, I was just-”

Dipper turned and ran.

---

He ducked under the blanket still covering the doorway, ignoring the startled bark from Soos, who had been lying next to it and who he nearly tripped over, and half-stumbled down the steps as he lunged out onto the grounds.  Behind him, he vaguely registered the sound of heavy paws and Soledad yelling for him to get back here; Dipper only ran faster, little feet pounding their way across the grass in the direction of the garden.

Dipper didn’t know where he was going as he crashed through the still-overgrown weeds and the few scraggly trees that had managed to grow here and there; all he wanted to do was find somewhere to hide, somewhere no one would be yelling at him or making fun of him or saying he was-

A massive gray form leaped into his path, and he was moving too fast to avoid barreling straight into it.

 

For a moment he couldn’t breathe, both from getting the wind knocked out of him and from getting a mouthful of thick gray fur.  Large paws caught his shoulders before he could fall over, pushing him back as their owner knelt to his level-and for a moment Soledad’s mouth just opened and shut as he stared at Dipper, the mixture of confusion and annoyance in his eyes changing to concern and alarm.

“...Dipper?  Hey, what’s the matter?  Calm down, take a deep breath-”

“I know I’m weak, okay?!”

The admittance came bursting out before Dipper could think about whether he wanted to actually say it or not.  To his shame his vision began to blur even more, which only added to his ire and caused him to spew the next words out, tired of keeping them in for so long.  “You don’t have to keep shoving it down my throat and reminding me of everything I can’t do, because I’ve already had to deal with being weak every day of my life except when it really counted -!”

He cut off with a broken sob, staring down at his shoes through watery eyes.

 

For a moment Soledad was silent.  Then his paws tightened their grip before he asked, in a softer voice than Dipper ever remembered him using, “What do you mean, when it really counted?”

Dipper closed his eyes.  “The plague.  I should’ve-I should’ve caught it, instead of Mom or Dad.  Maybe then they wouldn’t’ve-”

“What?”

The voice came from behind him, in a shocked gasp.  Dipper’s stomach clenched.

No no no she wasn’t supposed to hear that

After a moment he heard the crunch of footsteps, then he felt a different hand-smaller, more familiar-on his back.

“Dipper?  Do you-do you really think it’s your fault?”

He gave a tiny, helpless shrug.  “I dunno, Mabel.  But-it should’ve been me.  It’s always been me before, so why didn’t-”

There was a new crunching of grass behind them, and Grunkle Ford’s alarmed voice demanding, “What’s going on?  Dipper, are you all right?  What’s the matter?”

Soledad sighed, and reached out to gather the boy up into his arms.  “I think we oughta talk about this inside.”

---

***

---

“...So your parents and-and Shermie died of plague?” Ford asked, once they were in the library, all squished together on one of the sofas with a fire blazing in front of them and bundled up in a large quilt, with the animals clustered around them.

Soledad gave him a look over the heads of the kids.  “You didn’t even ask what happened to them?!”

He gave a tiny, guilty shrug.  “...I wasn’t sure if they wanted to talk about it, or if doing so would upset them.”

After a moment of trying to process this the beast reached an arm over and popped him on the back of the head.  Then he looked back down at the boy curled up bonelessly against his side.

Dipper gave a small nod, rubbing his face on his sleeve.  “...Everyone in the village but me got the plague, and-and ever since, I’ve been...having nightmares.  About our parents and Grandpa asking me why I didn’t get sick instead of them.”

Mabel made a sympathetic noise and hugged her brother more tightly.  “Oh, Dipper...you should’ve told me sooner.  I woulda gone into that dream and told ‘em to stop being jerks and leave you alone!”

Dipper finally let out a small laugh.

“Have you been...having any nightmares, Mabel?” Ford asked softly.

She froze, glancing at him with a guilty look that Soledad immediately translated as ‘yes,’ before giving a reluctant nod.  “...They’re about...the fires that they throw the corpses into.  I hear them calling me from the middle of them, asking me to come join them.”  Her mouth trembled, and she bit down on her lower lip.  “I know that they probably don’t want that, cuz when I started getting better Mom seemed so happy about it, but-”

“Nightmares are rarely rational,” Ford soothed; cautiously he lifted a hand and rubbed her shoulder, before scooting close enough to wrap his arm around both children.  “Even the kind caused by creatures that sit on your chest while you’re sleeping and give you night terrors usually have some basis around your subconscious fears and stresses-and in this case, trauma.  I...didn’t know your parents well, and I’d mostly lost contact with your grandfather long ago, but...I know how much they loved both of you.  And that none of them would have preferred your deaths over theirs.”

 

Soledad felt a harsh rock of guilt in his gut every time he looked at the poor kids’ red-eyed, teary faces-especially Dipper’s.  Not least because he’d never thought to ask what happened to their parents either.  I mean, he’d assumed something had happened to them, since they were living with a great uncle who didn’t appear to know jack about raising kids, but...yeah.

At last he swallowed his pride and murmured, “...You’re not weak, kid.”

Dipper lifted his chin, and gave him a skeptical frown.

“Well, physically, maybe.  But-I wasn’t tryna-” he fumbled with the words, clenching his fangs in frustration as he struggled to figure out what he wanted to say.  “I was givin’ you all those chores cuz I was tryna toughen you up, okay?  Cuz the world ain’t kind ta people it sees as weak.  It tears you apart if you let it, so I wanted you ta learn how ta...not let it.  And-and believe it or not, you’ve made a lotta progress.  You’ve gotten a lot better at handling everything I throw at you, and-”

It was Ford’s turn to swat him and give him a stern look.  He was forced to swallow down some more pride.

“...But maybe I kinda sorta didn’t go about it like I could’ve ta make it more clear what I was doin’, so you wouldn’t start thinking I hated you or whatever.  I’m...sorry.”

Dipper gave him a startled look.

Soledad flinched and looked away, ready to growl something about not making him say it again-when a pair of tiny noodle arms reached up and wrapped around his neck.

“Um-kid?  What’re you doing?  Is this a hug?”

“...No, it’s a chokehold.”  And Dipper began trying unsuccessfully to perform said hold.

Soledad just caught the back of his shirt and flipped him into his lap.  “Nice try, shortstack-your arms aren’t that strong yet!”

As he wrestled the kid, he decided that maybe he could set up the suit of armor himself.  Or at least just make Dipper help , instead of expecting him to do it all himself.

---

***

---

It didn’t exactly make everything better to talk about the nightmares.  But…it did help, to have someone else tell Dipper that he shouldn’t blame himself for surviving.

And he was surprised by how much it pleased him that part of that support and comfort came from Soledad , of all people.

 

It made him really hope that he wasn’t the one responsible for what happened to Grunkle Ford.

Chapter 25: Tale as old as time

Mabel hardly recognized the castle.

I mean, technically she did, since she’d been here so long she could practically navigate the place with her eyes closed, but it was so different , at least in the places they went to most often and were setting up for the tours, from the crumbling wreck it had been when she and Dipper first arrived.

The hallways were now clean of cobwebs, dust and leaves, not to mention the scattered deer and rabbit bones Soledad used to leave lying around.  All the old, shredded tapestries were taken down; Mabel had sewed up the ones that were still salvageable, or even just taken ones that were ripped in ways that would fit and just sewed them together, and the rest were burned.  The stairs were steady and firmly put together, without a single loose stone, and all the old rooms filled with clutter had been dusted, brushed, polished and set up again into interesting and/or hilarious attractions.  Mabel even caught Grunkle Ford laughing at some of them, try as he might to cover it up if he realized anyone was watching him.
She hoped he’d come around soon and quit being such a grumplepuss (or should I say, grunkle puss) about this whole tourist attraction thing.

 

At least he and Soledad were getting along a lot better; they spent more time talking to each other than fighting now (even though Soledad clearly still loved pushing Grunkle Ford’s buttons whenever he got the chance), often even comparing stories about some of the strange creatures they’d seen in the forest and the different ways that they’d dealt with them, or just sitting together and talking about random subjects, like if your house was on fire and you could only grab one thing to take with you, what would it be?

Oddly enough, listening to them talking sometimes reminded her of herself and Dipper.

 

Speak of the devil, he’d been...a lot happier, ever since he’d talked to them about his nightmares, and about his guilt for not dying, basically.

Both of the kids were a lot happier.

It was weird; while they were still sad about losing their parents and Grandpa Shermie, and still upset about how unfair it was that the plague had basically passed them over while so many other people in their village died...being able to talk about it with someone else had made it a little easier to deal with.  The nightmares started happening less frequently, and it was becoming easier for Mabel to think about happy memories of her mother putting pigtails in her hair, or sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he helped her draw a picture of a giraffe, without getting a big ugly knot in her tummy.

---

Eventually Mabel decided that the best way to express how happy she was about these changes was, naturally, by throwing a party the night before the first big tour.

 

Soledad looked less than thrilled at the idea when she brought it up at breakfast that day.

“I don’t believe in having parties unless I can charge an exit fee,” he said flatly, before biting a peach in half.

“Awwww, c’mon!” Mabel wheedled.  “It’ll be a fun way to celebrate all our hard work!”

Dipper looked up from his own breakfast.  “...It’s been a long time since me and Mabel got to go to a party.  It could be fun.”

“Mabel and I,” Grunkle Ford corrected automatically.

Soledad rolled his eyes.  “Same difference.”

“It most certainly is not; the rules of grammar dictate-”

“Yeah, well, the rules of my castle say grammar, schmammar.”  Soledad leaned over and gently flicked him in the forehead.

Grunkle Ford gave a long-suffering sigh and looked back at Mabel.  “What exactly did you have in mind, Mabel?”

She shrugged.  “Not much.  Just that we could put up some decorations and eat yummy food and dance and stuff!”

“We don’t exactly have any instruments.  Or musicians,” Dipper reminded her.

Mabel deflated a little.  “Oh yeah.”  Then she brightened.  “But it’d still be fun, right?”  She looked up at Soledad with big eyes, reminding herself to bat her eyelashes a few times.  “And maybe we could find some nice clothes to dress up in and stuff!  Pleeeeeease?”

After a moment Soos wandered over, nearly upsetting the table as he bumped into it in the process, and laid his head on Soledad’s knee with a plaintive whine.  Then Pacifica landed on his shoulder and crooned, and Wendy scooted around next to Soos, tilting her head at an angle of maximum adorableness.

Soledad’s mouth trembled, before he folded his arms and looked away grumpily.

“You can all stop looking at me like that, cuz it ain’t gonna work!  We are not having a party in this castle!  Never!”

---

***

---

Half an hour later

 

“Shut it,” Soledad growled as he began winding another garland of flowers that Mabel had put together around one of the pillars in the biggest room of the castle, which she had designated as ‘the ballroom.’

“I said nothing.”  The smirk that kept stealing onto Ford’s face betrayed his angelic tone of voice.

Soledad just turned around and tweaked his nose before going back to work.

---

***

---

Mabel tried not to squeal with glee too often as she cut and sewed a roll of old pink fabric she’d found in one of the spare rooms, making sure to “bedazzle” it as much as possible with rhinestones and a few embroidered flowers.  Pacifica sat by her side as her reluctant assistant (having been bribed with the promise of her own dress for the party), passing over items as required or squawking when she wanted to direct Mabel’s attention to something she thought would work for the outfit.

“Dipper, have you figured out what you’re gonna wear to the party yet?”

Dipper, who had been about to go in search of more decorations, froze mid-step, before glancing guiltily over his shoulder at his sister.  “Um...what I’m wearing right now?”

Mabel slowly lifted her head, eyes flashing dangerously.  “Wrong answer!”

 

Seconds later she, Pacifica and Waddles were in hot pursuit of the fleeing boy into one of the corridors not set up for the tours.

“You’ll never take me alive, Mabel!”

“Just surrender now, and I’ll make this makeover nice and easy!”

“NEVER!!!!”  He leaped up onto a sofa and tried to climb a curtain-which, predictably, resulted in it tearing free and both of them crashing to the floor.

Soledad stuck his head out of the ballroom.  “If you knuckleheads are gonna kill each other, do it outside!  We just finished getting this dump cleaned up!”

“Okay!” Mabel called back cheerfully, before taking the opportunity to pounce.

---

***

---

When she was done, Dipper was wearing a nice black suit, complete with lacy cravat, with his hair brushed out until it was fluffed up almost as much as Grunkle Ford’s and smelling faintly of flowers.  He supposed he should just count himself lucky that she hadn’t tried to give him any makeup.

“Ugh, this thing’s strangling me!” he protested, tugging at the cravat.  “Why do people wear these dumb things?!”

Pacifica gave a miffed chirp and perched on his shoulder, before using her beak to adjust it and fluff it out.  Dipper muttered a grudging ‘thanks.’

“She says you look very handsome!” Mabel said with a grin.

Pacifica jumped off his shoulder with a far more indignant-sounding squawk; at the same time Dipper was surprised to feel himself turning red.  “She did not!  You don’t know that!”  Immediately he felt ridiculous for getting so flustered over an imaginary compliment from a bird .

“Trust me, Dipping-Sauce, whenever a girl looks at a guy like that it means-agh!”  Mabel quickly ran for cover in an attempt to escape being pecked by an angry bird, still grinning.

---

***

---

Even though he felt a little silly doing all this, before dinner Ford picked out a clean, relatively nice suit from Soledad’s old stash (it really was incredible how many things he kept lying around in this castle); his personal favorite part of the ensemble was a long red frock coat, embroidered with gold on the lapels and sleeves.  Something about the color scheme just really spoke to him.

Once he was dressed to his satisfaction Ford stepped out to go find the others, and almost ran into Soos.  Specifically because the dog was sitting outside the door, looking expectant.  His coat appeared to have been brushed, and there was a dark green bow tied around his neck that Ford suspected was Mabel’s work.

As soon as he set eyes on him Soos barked happily, and (for once) refrained from jumping up on him; instead he nearly knocked him over by nuzzling his ribs, and then grabbed his sleeve and began pulling him towards the stairs.

“All right, all right, I’m going!  Please desist!”  But for once, Ford couldn’t bring himself to become too aggravated with the dog.  As much as the idea of using this castle to exploit people’s curiosity still irked him, everyone else’s excitement about the upcoming tour had proved to be somewhat contagious.

Not to mention that tomorrow was also the day that he and the children would finally enact their plan.

 

When he reached the ballroom, which was also where they would be having dinner, he found the children and the other animals sitting around the table from the kitchen, with a roast pig (complete with an apple in its mouth) in the center and a few bowls of fruit and vegetables surrounding it, and dishes from several different sets laid out at every spot; that was okay, however, since none of the chairs were from the same set either.  Every available flat surface was covered with candles, and the walls were elaborately hung with garlands and streams of colored ribbons; some of them were decorated with shiny rhinestones, meaning that they reflected the lights and created an interesting level of ambiance.

Wendy and María were both wearing colorful bows like Soos’s, except that they were lighter green and purple, respectively; Pacifica, on the other hand, was draped in a splendid aqua-colored miniature dress with slits cut in it for her wings, and had on a little necklace of gold beads.  As he got closer, he even thought he could see that her talons had been painted to match the dress, but that had to be just a figment of his imagination.

As for the instigator of this whole party idea, she wore a lavish pink dress that Ford could tell she had made herself, and looked very proud of it too.  He made a mental note to draw a sketch of it at the first available opportunity, because she looked absolutely adorable.

Mabel gasped in delight as she saw him, and her hands flew to her mouth.  “OMG, Grunkle Foooord!” she squealed.  “You look amazing !”

Ford flushed awkwardly, and a hand reflexively rubbed the back of his neck.  “Um-thank you, it’s-just something I found.”  He looked around with a small frown.  “Where’s Soledad?”

Dipper shrugged.  “We haven’t seen him yet.”

Mabel frowned, and tapped her fork against the table impatiently.  “He’d better not be hiding!”

And then, as if on cue, the door at the opposite end of the room flew open, and in strode the beast himself.

 

Soledad was now wearing long brown trousers that flared a little at the bottoms, and a white shirt that was partially unbuttoned in the front, allowing Ford to see a fancy gold chain standing out against his gray fur.  As he walked towards them, the beast was doing an odd sort of dance, and singing to himself under his breath.

The singing petered off when he saw how everyone was looking at him, and he slowed to a stop before giving them a challenging look.  “...What?  If we’re gonna have this dumb dress-up shindig I’m gonna do it on my own terms.”

Finally Mabel smiled.  “You look great too!  C’mon!”  She waved for him to join them at the table.

His raised hackles settled, but then he turned back to the door.  “Gimme a second, pumpkin.”  He opened it again, and gestured with one of his paws; a moment later about a dozen tiny men wearing tall red hats came marching in, working together to carry several instruments, including a cello, a violin, some flutes and even a tiny piano.

Ford couldn’t believe his eyes.  “...Are those gnomes ?”

Soledad shrugged at him over his shoulder.  “They owed me a favor, and I decided now was the time ta call it in.”

The one in front, who seemed to be their leader despite being younger than the rest, grumbled a little under his breath.  “That’s the last time we ever play cards with you, by the way!  I wouldn’t’ve done it in the first place if I’d known-”  He skidded to a halt when his eyes landed on Mabel.  After a moment they lit up, and he said with a slow smirk, “Well, hel- lo -!”

A moment later he saw the look Soledad was giving him, in addition to hearing the low growl building in his chest, and quickly looked away.  “Right, right, focusing on setting up!  Carl, get ready to help us tune up!”

---

To Ford’s surprise, Soledad actually made some effort at eating neatly; after dishing out a few portions to everyone he made a clumsy effort at picking up utensils and trying to carve his meat with them, instead of just picking it up with his bare paw like usual.  While he seemed to have a decent grasp of how to hold the knife and fork, however, his long clawed fingers just couldn’t seem to get a decent grip.

After a minute of watching him trying and failing to get it right, Ford finally took pity and decided...well, maybe it was time to meet him halfway.

Carefully he took off his coat, not wanting to get the sleeves dirty, and cleared his throat to get the beast’s attention.

“Did you know that in ancient Roman times they didn’t have forks?  Mostly they would just eat their food like this.”  And, after making sure that his shirt sleeves were tucked back, he used his first two fingers and thumb to neatly pull some meat off the bone, and popped it into his mouth, keeping the other three raised out of the way.

Soledad looked surprised for a second-and then his shoulders relaxed a little, and a small smile rose around his mouth before he put aside the cutlery and mimicked the movement.

Immediately the kids wanted to do it too, so before long they were all (except the animals, obviously) eating like the Romans.

Well, not exactly like the Romans, obviously, since if they wanted to do that they’d have to be reclining on couches and having their food served to them, but it was close enough.

 

After everyone finished eating and washed their hands or paws, Mabel eagerly pushed back her chair.

“C’mon guys, let’s go cut a rug!”

The others mostly sighed, but they followed her into the “dance area.”

“Okay, everyone ready?” the lead gnome demanded as he hopped onto a tiny stool in front of his fellow gnomes, a baton gripped in one little hand.  “Steve, Carl, Andy-and, sorry, I always forget your name?”

“Shmebulock!”

“Right, Shmebulock!  Watch me for the key changes!  And a one, and a two, and a one, two, three!”

The gnomes turned out to be surprisingly good musicians, playing a series of unfamiliar little tunes that were still fun to dance to.  None of them really bothered with trying to remember typical dance etiquette; Soos got up on his hind legs and hung onto Soledad’s shoulders, allowing them to do an awkward waltz around in a circle; Mabel picked up María and spun a few times with her before gently putting her down and glomping onto Dipper; Ford found himself balancing Pacifica on his outstretched arm as he lightly put one foot in front of the other in time with the music.  Partners changed according to whim, and as odd and even outright silly as the whole thing felt, it was also...fun.

 

Finally the dance reached a point where Soledad was balancing a child on each shoulder, making them both whoop and laugh in delight as he spun around and around until he finally had to lean against a wall to avoid losing his balance.

“Okay, I think that’s enough of that,” Ford said, making his way over.  “We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Soledad sighed, and slowly lowered first Dipper, then Mabel down to the floor.  “Yeah, I know.  It’s your turn now anyway.”

“My-?  Oh.  Oh, no, I am too old and too heavy for you to carry around.”

Soledad grinned.  “That sounds like a challenge, Sixer.”

“It is not a challenge, it is a- no put me down !  I am serious, this is not dignified-!”

Soledad just laughed as he galloped around the room with Ford on his shoulders.  “Dignity, schmignity!”

“Yeah, go, Grunkle Soledad!”

“You’re the champion of champions!”

“Stop encouraging him!”

---

Despite his worries, neither Ford nor Soledad had any bones broken when he was finally set back down; they were just both somewhat windblown and needed a moment to get their breath back.

By now it was quite late; María was sound asleep in a corner, with Soos curled up around her, only moving to occasionally try to bite a glowing dot reflected from the nearby lights.  Wendy was standing on one of the chairs, eating some leftover meat off the table, and Pacifica had flown up onto the chandelier, where she was preening.

Mabel and Dipper were both yawning and leaning on each other, looking happily drowsy.

Soledad thumped over to them, chuckling, and gently scooped them both up.

“Okay, you can go now,” he told the gnomes.

“Finally!” their leader grumbled, putting aside the baton and heading for the door.  Then he glanced back over his shoulder as the rest began gathering up their instruments.  “...Any chance we can sneak some of that pie before we-”

Soledad growled, baring his fangs.

“Okay, okay, we’re going!”

 

“You can just go to bed,” Soledad told Ford as they wandered for the stairs, “I’ll take care of the mess.”

“Wait, the master of the castle is going to do his own cleaning instead of making his servants do it?”  Ford put a hand to his forehead in pretend concern.  “Are you feeling well?”

“Get off.”  Soledad elbowed him with a snort.  “We got plenty of work ta take care of tomorrow, so you knuckleheads need all the rest you can get.”

“Oh.  Right.  The tour.”  Ford felt a small mixture of nervousness and excitement rush through his stomach.  “...And you made sure everyone will know how to get to this castle?  Including the McGuckets?”

Soledad laid the children down on the bed and pulled off their shoes for them.  “Wendy took the invitations to every house she could find, including yours, so they better.”

“Good.  I’ve...been somewhat neglectful in letting them know how we’re doing.”  This time his stomach squirmed with guilt.  “They’ve probably been worried sick about us.”

Soledad hesitated halfway through turning towards the door.  He opened his mouth, then closed it again, before his shoulders drooped.  “Yeah, well...you’ve all served your time, so...after tomorrow you can leave whenever ya want.  Kay?”

Ford blinked.  By now he had all but forgotten that the original reason why they’d started staying here was that it was a punishment for trespassing.  And not just because he’d become so caught up in trying to figure out the mystery of why the castle was familiar to him, and where his journal was, and how he knew who the beast was.

He stammered for a moment, before managing to get out, “Soledad-”

“Night, Ford.”  Soledad slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Notes:

In the book "Maskerade," by Terry Pratchett, the perfect answer to what you would take out if the house was on fire and you could only bring one item, is to take out the fire.

Chapter 26: Kill the beast (?)

The next morning, Susan Wentworth opened the door of her tavern to sweep the front step in preparation for the impending wave of customers, and found a large piece of paper resting on it.

Curiously she picked it up, and lifted up her droopy eyelid to help her get a better look at it.

It was old, yellowing paper, and sprawled across it in clumsy writing was a single question: “What Is the Mystery Castle?”

Next to it, she saw with a jolt, was a drawing that looked an awful lot like that old creepy castle that was out in the forest somewhere.

Susan turned the paper over, out of idle curiosity, and found a hand-drawn map!

 

Down at the town printing press, Toby Determined and Shandra Ximenez found another paper (they suspected that it was part of the parcel-of their best paper, no less-that had mysteriously vanished earlier that month) with the same message and map on it lying outside their door.

There was another outside Constables Blubs and Durland’s office, and another stuck to the window of the clock shop run by the very eccentric Mr. Blandin, and another stuck to a coffin lid outside the Valentino undertakers.

In fact, every household in Gravity Falls found a paper advertising the so-called “Mystery Castle” somewhere that morning.  Even Lord Northwest’s footman found an invitation on the doorstep when he went out to collect the morning milk.

And a mixture of fear and curiosity stirred through the town like the warm summer breeze.

---

Ever since they’d finished their automaton, Tate and his father had scoured the woods with it every day, in search of the beast that was keeping their friends prisoner (if, of course, he hadn’t decided to eat them or something horrible like that, but neither Tate nor Fiddleford tried to consider that possibility too often); but somehow, despite following the direction Manly Dan thought the creature had gone after stealing from his mill, putting down landmarks to show where they’d already been, and everything else short of cutting down all the trees in their path, they had been unable to find it.

It didn’t make any sense.

It was a big forest, yes, but Tate felt like he should already know where the beast was; a niggling hint of a memory far at the back of his mind, something from his childhood, kept poking at him to remember.  He thought it might have something to do with that old castle that everyone in town knew about, but hadn’t visited in years.

But it was funny; every time he started to think about the castle and tried to remember where it was...he would abruptly lose his train of thought, and continue searching in an entirely different region of the forest.

It had happened enough times for him to start recognizing that it was happening, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t stop it.

During one of those lucid moments before the thought faded away, he wondered if it was something like those fits his father had when he remembered something that frightened him.

 

And then that morning, Tate opened the door, and found the note lying outside it.  And when he saw the picture of the “Mystery Castle” on the front, the thought returned with a vengeance.

He snatched up the note, staring at the picture with wide eyes, as that faint memory came trickling back.

We’ve been there...we went there when I was about five...Mom was still alive and healthy, and was visitin’ her old family farm ta help her sister with a new baby while we came here ta help one of Dad’s old friends with his research-

The memory started to fade away, but Tate focused his gaze on the picture of the castle and pulled it back, ignoring the headache that began to rise in his temple in protest.

I remember...a garden, with a high stone wall all around it, where I used to play.  And room after room full of Ford’s experiments, kind of like how the house is now, except his papers were better organized, in- he frowned until the image swam forward- a journal, red with a gold mark on the front.  And sometimes Dad’d let me help out with his and Ford’s experiments, or with working on his automatons...but then one day-something happened, something bad -

 

I don’t think this is safe for Tate, Stanford

Then take him somewhere else if you’re that worried

I wanna see, I wanna see!

Tater-Tot go wait in the library this could be dangerous fer a young’un-or anyone else if ya ask me

I didn’t ask you

Stanford please

Science means taking chances, Fiddleford.  I’m going to go prepare the circle; if you’re that worried about it you can just leave.

It’s not fair I’m not too little I wanna see the experiment

Creeping back upstairs all quiet-like peering into the corridor Uncle Ford’s always working in with Daddy

They’re talkin’ funny, both at the same time an’ sayin’ the same kinda words-

A weird blue light, followed by a bright yellow one

A voice, high and shrill WELL WELL WELL if it isn’t Stanford Pines, the man who changed the world

Just shake my hand and let me out

Silence and then some high laughter

Looks like Brainiac’s not so smart after all

Then Daddy comes runnin’ lookin’ all scared even worse’n when that specimen escaped

Snatches me up, runs

Oh banjo polish Stanford’s gone and done it NOW

Daddy what’s happening-

Ssh ssh ssh Tate it’s okay don’t be scared but we gotta get outta here

What about Uncle Ford?

That idjit can get hisself outta his own mess, I’m done-

A single giant eye

WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING-

 

“Tate!  Tate!  Please wake up, baby, please!  Ya can’t-ya can’t leave me too, please , I can’t-!”

Groggily, Tate opened his eyes.

His head felt like it had that time he’d first tried his father’s home-brewed moonshine whiskey when he was fifteen (in retrospect, that had been a mistake, not least because he’d had a little too much).

His face felt damp with sweat, and his legs were cold; the fact that he was lying on the ground probably had something to do with it.

All except for his head and shoulders, which were warm and comfortable, even if the surface they were resting on was a little bony.

After a second he realized it was because they were resting in his dad’s lap, something that hadn’t happened in years.

Fiddleford was stroking his hair, and babbling frantically in a mixture of old school cussin’ and frantic, tearful pleading.

Tate groaned, and started to sit up, only to have his face caught in a pair of old wrinkled hands, and before long his dad was anxiously checking him over.

“Tater Tot?  Are ya okay?!  What happened?!  Didja hit your head, or just-oh donkey spittle, I didn’t think that I-when I have those fits-I never thought it was hera-did-a-tary, I’m so sorry-!”

“Dad, Dad!”  Tate caught his father’s wrists gently.  “I-It’s okay, I just-I’m fine.”  He wasn’t, but that wasn’t important right now.

He looked down at the paper, which had somehow wound up crumpled against his shirt, and ignored another throb of pain in his skull.  “...I know where we need ta go ta find Stanford and the kids.”

---

Back in the town square, various folks had gathered to compare the curious missives.

“Didn’t some crazy scientist used to live in a castle somewhere in the woods?” asked a man in a green suit, who for some reason always had a woodpecker sitting on his shoulder.

“I think it was Mr. Pines, wasn’t it?” young Tyler Cutebiker piped up.

“Heh!  That’d explain a lot!” snorted a tall, dark-skinned man covered in tattoos.  “I always knew he was some kind of wizard!”

“People have gone there before and never come out!  I heard one of them was Lord Northwest’s daughter or something!”

“Maybe he’s started up using black magic again, and this is a trap to lure us all there to become part of his experiments!”

“I know he’s got a beast of some kind as his minion, who steals our cleaning supplies and food and leaves us weird wooden money in exchange!  It’s been doing it for months!”

The voices clambered louder and louder, speculation and suspicion mixing with accusation and rumor-until all of them were startled into silence by the feeling of the ground starting to quake.

 

They turned to look for the source of this-and let out a collective gasp of terror at the sight of a massive dragon with shiny gray scales slowly marching to the edge of town.

The terror, though, quickly turned to confusion when they saw a familiar redheaded figure standing on its shoulder, axe in hand-and not because he was fighting with it.  He actually appeared to be riding it.

The beast stomped onto the street, picking its way past the houses with surprising elegance before coming to a stop in front of the terrified crowd-and then opened its mouth, and Tate McGucket stepped out onto the tongue and waved at them, a little awkwardly.

The realization that this was just another of Crazy Old Man McGucket’s automatons was only slightly more reassuring than the thought that there was a real-life dragon attacking their town.

But then Manly Dan raised his axe into the air, and bellowed, “WE KNOW WHERE THE BEAST IS, AND WE’RE GONNA GO PUT AN END TO HIM!”

 

“You mean the beast that Stanford Pines is using as his evil minion?” someone demanded.

Dan blinked.  “What?  No!  He’s taken Mr. Pines prisoner, along with his niece and nephew!”

“...You sure?  That seems a little backwards, cuz, you know, he always had a weird obsession with all the creatures that apparently live in the woods-”

“OH, WHO CARES WHICH IT IS!” A rather heavyset girl in a pink blouse interrupted.  “LET’S GO FIND THIS CASTLE AND GET THAT BEAST!”

That, the mob understood.

 

Unfortunately, there were not enough torches and pitchforks to go around (to say nothing of it being the middle of the morning, rendering the torches unnecessary regardless), so they were unable to form the traditional structure of an angry mob.  However, they made do with whatever weapons they could grab, and with a few people at the front leading the way with the maps, the majority of Gravity Falls’s population began marching towards the castle.

It somehow didn’t occur to most of them to wonder why the monster they were setting out to destroy would have given them maps to its lair in the first place.

Nor did they notice the small red fox watching them from the trees, which after a minute darted away into the shadows.

---

Tate’s eyes throbbed, even as he resolutely piloted the automaton at the back of the mob; he had to keep glancing at the picture of the castle which he had stuck to the window next to his head, along with listening to the sound of Manly Dan’s axe thumping against the side of the dragon’s ‘head’ in rhythm with their heavy steps, in order to keep his thoughts from drifting away and making him steer them off course.

Next to him, in the copilot seat, his dad was fidgeting and twitching with increasing frequency, the way he got when he was remembering something and trying not to, or when he was trying to remember and in danger of having a fit as a consequence; it got even worse when they found the path.

Tate couldn’t blame him; it was becoming all he could do not to turn back instead of following the crowd.

Gotta do it for Dad , he told himself firmly.  Maybe if we can get to this-to the castle -yeah, we’re goin’ to a castle-we can figure out how to help him get better.

Then we can take Ford and the kids home, and maybe the idjit’ll finally have learned how to pay attention to them instead of spending all his time with his head in his research, so we can be a proper family, kinda-

The clang of Dan’s axe startled Tate out of his thoughts.  He realized they were starting to veer off, and after glancing at the map to ground himself again he forcibly steered them back after the mob.

Fiddleford whimpered, clutching his head in his hands and rocking back and forth in his seat; Tate could hear him muttering under his breath, broken fragments of words and garbled whispers.  Some of them sounded like pieces of a poem or something.

“Hang in there, Dad,” he murmured softly.  “We’re...almost there.  It’s gonna-” he gritted his teeth against the throbbing- “be fine.”

 

And then, just when he thought he couldn’t take one more second of pain, there it was.

An old, abandoned castle in the middle of the forest, surrounded by a wall that Tate could see over due to how high up he was, allowing him to see the garden, looking like it hadn’t been taken care of in years but just barely recognizable.

“THERE IT IS!” someone in the crowd helpfully pointed out.

“Everyone, when I say KILL, you say THE BEAST!” called someone else.  “KILL!”

“THE BEAST!”

“KILL!”

“THE BEAST!”

Tate was already pulling the lever that would start the build-up of fire in the mouth of the automaton, ready to create a concentrated white-hot blast that would completely melt the gates-

Which were now slowly-but-surely creaking open as the mob approached, before two tiny figures stepped somewhat nervously out on either side of them.

Tate’s heart skipped a beat in a mixture of anxiety, shock and relief as he realized who they were, even as they did twin (ha ha) poses and proclaimed in unison, “Welcome, folks, to a world of mystery and wonder!!!!”

Notes:

Take that, writer's block! Despite your best attempts to stop me, I have once again added to this story, and even now we are steadily progressing towards the climax!

Chapter 27: Remember, remember, though your mind's dismembered

Notes:

Happy Veteran's Day, for those of you who celebrate it.

It was all Dipper could do not to panic when he noticed the selection of weapons being held by the crowd.  Or the giant metal dragon which he recognized as Old Man McGucket’s automaton standing at the back of them, with what appeared to be a flicker of fire building in its massive muzzle.

“Remind me again why we agreed to be the first ones out here?” he hissed at Mabel.

“Cuz we’re kids!  That means we’re cute and disarming!”  She grinned more widely, and continued posing, but he could see a hint of nervousness in her own eyes.

On the bright side, the mob seemed more confused than angry now, staring at them with bewilderment and letting their weapons hang somewhat loosely in their hands.

And then, from the back of the crowd, a familiar voice yelled, “KIDS!”

 

The dragon stomped forward, making the mob part before it like the Red Sea before Moses (understandably, since being crushed by a giant metal dragon isn’t on most people’s itinerary), until it was at the front of the group.

Dipper immediately shrank back, but there were some curious clicking and whirring sounds inside, and then a little door opened up in one of its hind legs.

And Tate McGucket stumbled out of it, with his father skittering at his heels, both of them advancing on the children.

Their steps began to falter as they got close to the (newly rebuilt) gates, and their faces immediately scrunched up in nearly-identical expressions of pain, just like the one Grunkle Ford had when he was having memory problems!  This confirmed that they were under the same curse!

He glanced at Mabel, and she gave him an excited nod indicating that she’d realized the same thing; they rushed forward to greet them, and hopefully pull them inside.

As they got close, though, Tate half-slumped to his knees and grabbed each of them by a shoulder.

“Are you two all right?  Where’s Ford?  Where’s the beast?!”  He looked back and forth between them anxiously, cupping first one jaw and then the other as he continued checking them over.

Mabel moved all the way in to turn the semi-affectionate gesture into a full-on hug.  “It’s okay, Tate!  Grunkle Ford’s in the castle, preparing for the tour!”

Tate pushed her back.  “The what ?”

“...I knew we should’ve put more explanation on the invitations,” Dipper muttered.

 

“...Um, are these the kids that the beast kidnapped?” a confused voice asked from the crowd behind the little group.

“Wait, I thought Mr. Pines kidnapped them!”

“What?  No, neither of them kidnapped us!” Dipper called over Tate’s shoulder.  “Well, I guess with the beast it’s more of a technical thing, but-it’s difficult to explain, but the point is, the beast means you no harm!”

“No harm?!  It’s been stealing from us!” came a more indignant voice.

“I had a perfectly good pig that I was fattening up for pig-eating season, and that ornery critter came and swiped ol’ 15-Poundy right outta his pen!” spluttered a man who was presumably a pig farmer.

Dipper winced, and hoped that Waddles stayed out of that man’s sight during the tour.  “...Yeah, he does kinda have a bad habit of that.  But to be fair to him, he doesn’t have any money.”  He straightened up.  “And that, in fact, is why all of you have been invited here today!”

Mabel, recognizing her cue, leaped forward and produced a handful of confetti from some unknown spot on her person, tossing it into the air.  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mystery Castle!  I’m sure many of you have wondered what secrets lie behind this giant stone wall!”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t even know this place existed until today.”

“Well, maybe sometimes, but I didn’t even know where to find it-”

“And today is your chance to find out!” Mabel hastily interrupted, reciting her lines perfectly.  “Through these gates there lies a treasure trove of oddities and wonders never before seen by human eyes, for the low price of ten coppers a person!”

People started visibly bristling.

“We’ll also give you back your cleaning supplies!” Dipper hastily added.

The mob hesitated.

And then Tate looked around with a frown just barely visible under his bangs.  “Hey, where’d my dad go?”

He stood up, searching, turned-and gasped when he saw his dad’s foot disappearing through the gates.  It was followed by a loud thump , and after a long moment a familiar shrill voice calling, “I’m o-kay!”

---

***

---

Fiddleford was awful glad ta see the kidlets alive and safe.

He weren’t sure they’d want him checkin’ ‘em over like Tate was, cuz he was purty sure he scared ‘em with what a crazy mess he was in comparison to his boy, so he held back, and just took a gander at this spot where they’d all wound up.

Flashes o’ memory were comin’ back ta him, more’n usual even jes’ outside o’ the wall, and fast enough fer him ta recognize ‘em for what they were for once ‘stead o’ losin’ ‘em in his usual fog.  They were right painful too, and he could feel his hands threatenin’ ta shake themselves all ta pieces the closer he came.

And yet.

And yet, despite the part o’ him that wanted more’n anythang ta scrapdoodle away from here like a frightened possum an’ lose hisself in his work like he always did...his friends were here.  Heck, Stanford was basically family , whether he wanted ta admit it or not, and family needed ta look out fer each other, no matter how much it hurt.

Asides, his mind had been gone fer thirty-odd years; there weren’t much worse a little pain could do to it.

Ya can’t break what’s already broken, after all.

So Fiddleford rolled up his sleeves, literally, and meandered on past his son an’ the kids towards the gate.

 

It was worse’n he’d thought; soon as he took his first step he thought he was nigh about ta black out, as his vision tunnel-ified and his mind screamed , practically beggin’ him ta stop, ferget all ‘bout this mess.

He jes’ gritted his teeth an’ kept movin’, barely even breakin’ his stride, even as the fractured pieces of his mind dug into each other like shards o’ glass sharper an’ harder an’ LOUDER-

---

When gravity falls

Daddy what’s goin’

For science

WELL

Run

I knew this was a bad idea

Please

Not my boy

Stanford NO-

---

And then it took him a minute ta realize that the pain was gone, and he was inside the gates.

---

Fer the first time in thirty-odd years, Fiddleford was really thinkin’ clearly, without workin’ on an automaton or his son’s help.

He didn’t have all his memories back or nuthin’, but there was some...order to ‘em now.  Like they were flowin’ through his brain more smooth-like.

He realized that he was lyin’ in the dirt, where he musta collapsed when the hurtin’ just became too much.

Slowly he pushed hisself up onto hands and knees, and adjusted his spectacles before callin’ over his shoulder, “I’m o-kay!”

 

Fiddleford slowly turned back toward the castle standin’ afore him.

It looked more decrepit ‘n he remembered.  Even when he first came here...it hadn’t been in the best condition...but even though he thought it’d been tidied up a mite recently, parts of it were still fallin’ ta rack an’ ruin.

Dazedly he started pullin’ hisself up-and then he heard the sounds of feet behind him, and turned ta see Tate staggerin’ in, the kids on either side holdin’ him up, and fergot tryna remember fer a minute and rushed over ta help catch his son.

“It’s okay, baby, jes’ hold on a minute, the curse was made fer keepin’ us outta here, so pushin’ past it’s gotta sting a mite.”

Tate managed to nod, even as he leaned his head on Fiddleford’s shoulder.

Took him a minute ta notice Dipper ‘n Mabel starin’ at him outta wide eyes.

“...You know about that?” Mabel whispered.

Fiddleford blinked as he realized that...he did.  “...Well, I do now ,” he admitted.  “It’s all a mite hazy, but...I remember...we lived here with Stanford, once upon a time.  We were workin’ on...a project, an’...somethin’ went wrong.”  His arms trembled around Tate’s shoulders.  “Stanford...wanted ta know-”

And then the rest o’ the crowd of people came trampin’ in through the gates, lookin’ nervous an’ confused but also mighty curious.

Notes:

If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.

Chapter 28: Tourist Trapped

...Well, at least most of them are putting their weapons down.  Or at least not holding them so threateningly.

Dipper’s stomach twisted anyway as he watched the villagers approach; they still had the look of a crowd with the potential to turn ugly very fast, if anything happened to set them off.

And then Grunkle Ford peered out the front door of the castle, made a startled noise when he saw the crowd, quickly shut it again, and then slowly opened it again and stepped out, resplendent in his red coat from the night before and looking more like a proper aristocratic gentleman than an eccentric scientist.

 

Grunkle Ford visibly swallowed when he registered the amount of eyes that were on him, but after a slight glance over his shoulder, cleared his throat and turned the corners of his mouth up into a basic impression of a smile.

“Good morning, ladies and-” he glanced down at a piece of paper that Dipper could faintly make out secreted in the palm of his hand- “gentletourists.”  His eyebrow twitched, and Dipper suspected he was repressing the urge to point out that that wasn’t a real word.  “I imagine that you’re all wondering why I’ve invited you here today.”

“Seriously?” a voice faintly hissed from the other side of the door.  “I knew I shoulda been the one ta do this, you’re saying it like if a statue could talk!”

Grunkle Ford ignored the voice, and just cleared his throat again, more pointedly.  “Rest assured, you have nothing to fear while you are my guests.”

“SO YOU ARE THE ONE IN CHARGE OF ALL THIS?  OR IS IT THE BEAST?” a girl near the front of the mob asked.

Grunkle Ford quickly flipped the card around and scanned it with his eyes.  “Ah, yes, the beast.  Yes, I am aware that many of you have some concerns about him.  I don’t blame you, for he is quite ferocious, in addition to possessing a level of strength and cunning incapable of being matched by any man or animal alive.”  He looked up and deadpanned, “Not to mention, modesty.”

There were a few uncertain giggles from the crowd, and it looked for a moment as if the tip of a large gray claw reached around the door and flicked his ear.  He glared over his shoulder again, and then resumed, “But never fear, ladies and gentletourists, for with my expertise I have successfully subdued the beast, and bent him to my will-”

At that moment the door burst open, and Soledad leaped out over Grunkle Ford’s head with a deafening roar!

 

There was a chorus of screams, and Dipper noticed McGucket immediately grabbing onto Tate and pulling him back out of harm’s way.

But the beast didn’t even pay attention to them, as he landed on his hind legs and sniffed at the air, jaws slavering, before lunging towards the closest available target: Mabel.

She barely had time to scream before he pounced on her, both of them tumbling across the grass in a ball of pink and gray!

That was enough to startle several villagers out of their shock and panic, and they rushed forward with weapons raised-

-only to be drawn up by the fact that Mabel was not screaming in pain, but giggling and squeaking, as Soledad cradled her against his chest and gently ran his claws up and down her ribs, purring loudly.

After a moment he sat up and began grooming her messed-up hair back into place, which of course led to more giggling.  This, in turn, caused a ripple of laughter combined with “Awww!” from the audience.

Even though he knew it had all been part of the act to win them over, Dipper still tried to get his heart to stop racing, using the fact that his sister was unharmed and visibly enjoying the treatment to reassure himself.

---

Grunkle Ford managed a similarly nervous-sounding laugh.  “...As you can see, the beast is not a threat to you.  I have successfully tamed him by-”

At which point Soledad waved a scornful paw at him and said somewhat irritably, “Ah, put a sock in it, Poindexter!”

The villagers all gasped.  He just looked back at them with a raised fuzzy eyebrow.  “What?  Ya never heard someone shut up an overblown windbag before?”

Near the front of the crowd, Lazy Susan was the first to laugh.  “That’s funny!  He not only tamed the beast, he taught him how to talk!”

Soledad spluttered in only half-seriousness.  “Oh, puh-lease!  Ya think an old pencil neck like him could tame somethin’ like me ?  I’ve just always been this charming!”  And he actually grinned and winked at her.

That was apparently enough to dissolve the rest of the crowd’s tension, as most of them began to laugh even more heartily.  Dipper understood why: it was harder to be scared of a creature that acted so...human.

 

Soledad finally got up, after shooing Mabel off him (much to her reluctance), and gave a cheesy bow to his audience.

“Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week!”  Seemingly out of nowhere he produced a funny-looking red hat with a black tassel attached to it-Dipper thought it was called a ‘fez’-and rolled it all the way down his arm before popping it onto his head.  This actually conjured up a round of applause from the now-thoroughly-enthralled villagers.

With a wide grin the beast finished off the routine by producing his cane, and using it to gesture at the doors.

“C’mon in, everyone, and see what wonders await!”

---

***

---

Ford didn’t quite understand how this had happened, but somehow, with just a few jokes and some parlor tricks, Soledad had the villagers pretty much eating out of his paws.

People who had made signs to ward off the evil eye every time he passed them in the street were now laughing and smiling as they willingly followed the seven-foot-tall talking tiger with inch-long fangs and claws that could probably take their heads off with one swipe into the old abandoned castle.

He always did have his own kind of charisma.

He barely had time to start being confused by the thought when he was abruptly almost knocked over by a small, bony form that barreled into him from one side and threw its skinny arms around his waist.

 

“STANFORD!  Great maids a’milking, I was worried sick about you three!”

Even though he’d heard the voice virtually every day of his life for the last thirty years, it took Ford a moment to recognize it.

“Fiddleford?!”

He pulled back enough to get a good look, and yes, it was his old friend standing there, looking marginally more put-together than he’d been ever since his wife died and even flat-out beaming up at him; and now Tate was there too, smiling his own quiet smile.

To his own surprise, Ford felt an odd amount of moisture rise in his eyes and his mouth stretching into a delighted grin at the realization that they were here, and they were all together again.

...And then Tate abruptly reached over and cuffed the back of his head, almost as hard as Soledad would’ve.

“Ya think maybe ya could’ve sent us a few more letters about what was goin’ on?!  For cripes’ sake , ya idjit!”  He cuffed the back of his head again, and Ford was forced to back up in an attempt to escape the onslaught.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry!  I kept meaning to write, but then putting it off and getting distracted and forgetting!”

Now it was Fiddleford’s turn to give him an annoyed look, and then punch him in the shoulder.  Ford couldn’t be too annoyed; he knew he deserved it.  But he attempted to defend himself regardless as he rubbed the sore spot.  “It’s just that this castle has the potential to answer a lot of questions that I’d forgotten I had until I came here!”

“Such as?”  Tate folded his arms.

“...Such as what happened to us thirty years ago.”

---

After making sure none of the animals were within earshot, Ford and the children clustered around and tried to explain what had happened to them during these last few months.

However, there was too much, so they had to just sum up as best they could.

“...The long and the short of it is, we need to see what’s in that corridor,” Ford finished up.

Fiddleford looked a little white, and his hands started trembling and tangling themselves in his beard.  “Y’mean the-the one with the door at the end?”

Ford looked down at him sharply.  “You remember?”

“Enough.”  He swallowed.  “Enough ta know that I want no part o’ that thing.  Nuh-uh.  It-there was-” he made a frustrated sound.

“You don’t have to go in,” Mabel assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder.  “You can just watch Soledad’s tour, and we’ll let you know whatever we find in there.”

Fiddleford let out a small whimper.  “There’s gotta be another way-”

“This is the only way left to us,” Ford said firmly.  “Soledad won’t or can’t tell us how this is all connected, and I can’t just wait around and hope my memories come back.  We need those answers, and today we’re going to get them.  No matter what it takes.”

---

***

---

I just love it when people say things like that, don’t you?  HAhahahahahaha!!!!

---

***

---

At that moment they heard an irritated-sounding yap from behind them, and saw Wendy standing impatiently in the doorway.

“Coming!”  Dipper and Mabel rushed off after her to get ready for their next part in the tour.

Tate looked uncertain...but at last nodded.  “What can we do to help?”

“Cover for us when we slip off, if anyone notices?”

He nodded again, and glanced at the castle.  “Lead the way.”

---

Ford had to admit, he was enjoying watching Soledad giving the tour.

For a creature who as long as he could remember had been forced to live alone in an abandoned castle with only non-speaking animals to talk to, he seemed to be bursting with an endless selection of jokes, stories, and anecdotes that had the tourists somewhere between enthralled and bursting with laughter, even with the things that initially frightened or confused them.

As he guided the group to the different rooms they’d decorated and showed the various odds and ends the castle contained to create bizarre exhibits, he invented stories about this one being cursed by a mad wizard, or that one making whoever touched it have a mysterious urge to give money to the first bipedal talking animal he saw.

It didn’t occur to Ford until a moment when he saw Soledad grinning with delight at having caused another round of laughter from the crowd that maybe his being alone for so long was the reason that he was so brimming with words now.

It caused an odd, sad little ache in his chest to think about it.

 

They didn’t have a chance to get away until about halfway through the tour.

Before that point, the children and Ford had their work cut out for them running back and forth to help with the exhibits.

The three of them, plus all of Soledad’s animals, worked together to manipulate the limbs of “the horrible Lycian Chimera,” created from several different pieces of old taxidermy that were dusted off and then sewn together, making it ‘come to life’ and roar (Ford did that part with surprising effectiveness) and wave its paws at the guests; Mabel and Dipper pulled the strings that made the “mysterious crystal ball” rise into the air and spin, while Soledad used its ‘whispered messages from the beyond’ to supposedly tell a few people’s fortunes in exchange for whatever coins they might have in their pockets; Pacifica provided the horrible cries of “the shrieking skulls” that didn’t take too kindly to anyone intruding upon their solitude, unless they were pacified by a few handfuls of berries.

But finally, while Soledad was distracted by guiding the group through the “hall of mirrors,” and Soos was distracted by looking at his own reflection in one of the mirrors and Pacifica was distracted by flying overhead to help guide them, and Wendy and María were off preparing for the next exhibit, Ford and the children nodded to each other and then slipped away.

---

When I mentioned earlier that they hadn’t even looked at that secret corridor after that one night, this was both true and misleading.

You see, the next day Soledad had hung a large, fancy tapestry from somewhere in the depths of the castle over the corridor to block it from view, and the little cluster of humans had taken advantage of this newfound opportunity.

While none of them were exactly the peak of physical fitness, they had managed, late at night when the rest of the castle was asleep, to spend an hour or so almost every night clearing away a space just big enough for all of them to climb over and down without disturbing the surrounding rubble.

It was risky work, and Ford had several times tried to do as much as he could by himself to avoid any harm coming to the children, but at last today they were able to climb over the space they’d made in the pile of rubble and drop down to the surprisingly wide space between it and the door.

Funnily enough, Ford had barely had even one headache the whole time that they’d worked on this corridor…

 

The door looked just as he thought he remembered it: made of thick, sturdy iron, with a piece of odd glowing blue glass shaped like an upside-down triangle in the center.

Ford didn’t notice the looks Dipper and Mabel gave it as he carefully reached for the handle, wincing at the feel of the cold metal but turning it firmly, and then peering inside after pushing the door open with a suitably ominous creeeeaaaaak .

...Huh.

For a mysterious hidden room, it was surprisingly...anticlimactic.

There was nothing inside, except for a large, full-length mirror set up in the center, surrounded by a circle of long-dead, half-melted candles, and a little table next to the mirror.  The room was far colder than even the draftiest parts of the castle, and had a faint, musty smell.

Ford slowly stepped inside, leaving large boot prints in the dust that liberally covered the floor, and tried to remember...why it was so important.  Much to his frustration, now that he was here, when he needed to remember most, he couldn’t at all.  He wasn’t even getting a headache, there was just...blankness, with a vague feeling of familiarity somewhere in there.

The children followed him, looking a little like curious puppies sniffing around an unfamiliar area.

“Grunkle Ford?”  Dipper looked up at him questioningly.  “Do you remember this place?”

Ford sighed through his nose.  “...Yes.”  Technically the truth.  “I suspect this is the core of...whatever happened to me and Fiddleford.  And perhaps the explanation for Soledad.”  He felt a small flicker of something like guilt or amusement at how that last part sounded.

“Maybe we gotta follow these directions,” Mabel said; she was standing at the table, holding up a piece of yellowed paper.

Ford joined her in the circle, took a look over her shoulder-and his innards squirmed with nervous excitement when he recognized his own handwriting on the page, even if he didn’t remember writing it.

“It appears so,” he mused, adjusting his spectacles.  “Apparently the first step is to light all these candles.”

“On it!” Mabel said brightly, producing a book of matches from somewhere within the confines of her clothing and lighting one of them with the candle they’d brought in with them; she handed it to Dipper, and the two of them began stepping around the circle, carefully lighting each candle as they went.

Stanford, I dunno if this is a good idea

The faint familiar echo ran across his mind for a moment and then faded as quickly as it had come.

Ford blinked, and shook his head a few times, before peering back down at the paper with better clarity now that there was more light.

“...Now all parties involved in the ritual must stand together, facing the mirror.”

Soon he had a child on either side of him, the pressure creating a comforting warmth in the middle of the cold.

“And now we just read this incantation together.  This is a simple ritual, apparently.”  He glanced down at Dipper and Mabel.  “Ready?”

“...What if one of us pronounces part of it wrong?” Dipper asked nervously.  “Won’t it maybe backfire horribly and kill one of us or something?”

“And what’s gonna happen when we read it?” Mabel asked.

You wanna know all the secrets of the universe, right?

Ford swallowed.  “...I don’t know.  But...if you’d feel safer waiting outside-” If you’re that worried about it you can just leave- “that’s fine with me.”

A tiny hand stole into his after a second.  “Wherever we go, we go together,” Mabel said firmly.

It wasn’t exactly what he’d said to them on the night he’d promised not to abandon them...but something about those words made Ford’s throat tighten, and all he could do was squeeze her hand in silent gratitude.  Then he turned to Dipper, who looked equally determined to stay, and swallowed down his feelings.

“I think it’s pronounced like this.”  Carefully he wrote out the phonetic spelling on the paper, and held it out for them to see.  “Can both of you understand that?”

After reading it through, and silently practicing for a moment, they finally all looked at the mirror together, and recited the words.

 

No sooner had they finished when a fresh icy wind swept through the room, enough to make the door slam shut and the circle of candles flicker madly.

Ford thought he heard a chorus of spectral voices whispering incomprehensible words all around him, and instinctively drew both children close as he whipped his head around in a fruitless search for their source.

All he saw instead was the color of the candles’ lights...change.

One moment they were all the normal yellow, but then, a faint blue tinge started up in the middle of one of them; a tinge that quickly spread to the candle next to it, and the next one, until they were surrounded in an eerie pale blue light.

As the blue reached the mirror, it almost seemed to latch onto it; softly at first, but then with increasing brightness, the entire surface of the mirror began to glow.

Ford’s heart started pounding in his chest; this he definitely remembered now.  Enough for him to anticipate his, Dipper’s and Mabel’s reflections vanishing, only to be replaced by a form that looked a little like the triangle on the door.

Except right-side up.

And bright yellow, with one wide, slit-pupiled eye in the center that possessed unusually long eyelashes (at least by human standards; Ford wasn’t sure if they applied to...whatever this creature was).

And a petite black bow tie.

And a top hat.

And a cane clutched in one skinny black hand.

And speaking, in an odd high-pitched little voice that somehow managed to echo around the room.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite family!  I’ve been wondering when you three would show up!”

Notes:

Author's note: there are multiple dangerous, reckless actions taken in this chapter, namely moving and navigating through massive piles of rocks without the use of proper safety equipment, and performing an unfamiliar, unholy ritual that ended up summoning a demon. These actions were performed by a trio of foolhardy protagonists who, because this is not a George R.R. Martin novel, were therefore gifted with miraculous plot armor that allowed them to survive these experiences for the most part intact.
I cannot emphasize this enough: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

Chapter 29: Not what he seems, part 1

Normally Mabel would’ve thought the little creature was adorable.

He had all the normal criteria for maximum adorableness: small, brightly colored, a funny-sounding voice, big eyes (well, eye , but close enough) with long eyelashes-even a cute little bowtie and a top hat, which under any other circumstance would’ve put him in the top-tier ranking.

But something about him...didn’t feel right.

She didn’t know what it was yet, unless it was maybe the cold wind and blue fire that had announced his arrival...but looking at him was causing a small, uncomfortable knot to grow in her tummy.

Mabel glanced at her family to see if they were getting the same kind of vibe.

Dipper’s eyes were all big and excited and curious-y, but to her relief he was huddling against Grunkle Ford, so maybe he wasn’t feeling safe with this thing either.

As for Grunkle Ford…

Mabel glanced up at him, and the knot in her tummy grew.

He had that Blank Look again, which probably meant there was some kind of connection between him and whatever this thing was.

Didn’t it?

 

“Who-who are you?” Dipper demanded, voice cracking in a way that for once Mabel didn’t feel like laughing at.

“Name’s Bill Cipher!”   Bill tipped his hat and did the closest thing to a bow it was possible for his isosceles body to achieve.

Mabel wrinkled her nose.  Somehow, not even having an adorable-sounding name was enough to make him less creepy.

Dipper tilted his head.  “...Are you some kind of-um-Fair Folk, or-?”

“Eh, your world’s got a lot of words for what I am, kid.  None of ‘em are quite right, and tryna explain exactly what I am to you would probably blow your little mind.”   Bill waved a nonchalant hand; Mabel felt Grunkle Ford’s own hand tighten a little on her shoulder.  “But enough about me; let’s talk about you .  I’ve been watching you for a while, and I gotta say, I’m impressed!  You kids are on the brink of unlocking all of your family’s biggest secrets!  Including-” he drew himself up, and spoke in a tone that actually deepened his voice for a second- “the secret...of the BEAST!”

All the candlelights flickered in unison.

“...What do you mean?” Mabel managed to ask, hating how shaky her voice was.  “What secret?”

Bill giggled.  “Oh, nothing big: just the itsy-bitsy but ever-so-crucial tiny connection with why your uncle can’t remember his past.”

“I knew it!”  Dipper lurched forward eagerly, until he was almost nose to nose with the mirror; clearly excited enough by his suspicions being confirmed to forget his unease.  “What happened?!  What did he do?!  How do you know about it-are you his minion or something?!”

“...Sorry, but I can’t tell you.”   The little creature twirled his cane as he floated down to Dipper’s eye level, with his own eye creasing into a little crescent moon that Mabel thought meant he was smiling; she got the feeling that despite his tone, he wasn’t actually sorry at all.

“Why not?!” Grunkle Ford demanded, finally breaking through his own numb silence.

Bill’s slitted pupil slowly floated up to glance in his direction, but instead of answering, after a moment he focused his gaze back on Dipper.  “All I can tell you, Pinetree, is that you’re getting scammed by that big ball of fluff, just like he scammed me once upon a time.  He knows more than he lets on, and if you wanna find out what he knows, you’re gonna haveta find your uncle’s journal.”

Mabel’s stomach dropped .

No...no, he’s gotta be lying, right?  Soledad would never scam-well, he’d scam some people, since that’s what he’s doing right now, but he wouldn’t do it to us.  He wouldn’t hurt us.  He likes us.

...Doesn’t he?

“You think I don’t know that?!” Dipper demanded aloud, oblivious to her emotional turmoil.  “We’ve looked for it everywhere!”

“Really?  Are you sure ?”   Bill leaned both his tiny black hands on the top of his cane, and tilted forwards.  “Did you check in the beast’s secret room?”

 

“...Soledad has a secret room?”

Bill made a sound that was kind of like a snort.  “Soledad?  Is that what he calls himself?”  He shook his...body (since he didn’t have a head to shake).  “Geez that’s pathetic.”

Mabel felt her hands inadvertently clenching into fists.  “He is not-”

“But, he does.”  He lifted the cane and gave it a little twirl in the air.  “It’s not surprising ya don’t know about it, since it’s, y’know, a secret , but yeah.  Got it stashed away where nobody sees, just like his heart.”

“Where?”

“And here I thought you were the brilliant Mystery Twins or whatever.”   Bill set the cane down and leaned one elbow on it.  “You’ve seen him come out of it a couple times, I really thought you woulda caught on by now.”

Mabel wracked her brain for what the triangle could be talking about; where would Soledad’s secret room be?  If, of course, he had one, and this jerk wasn’t just lying.

“...Of course, I could always give you a hint, if you’re really desperate… ” Bill purred, sidling until he looked like he was right up against the glass on his side of the mirror.  “I’d just need a small-” his hand suddenly lit up with blue flames- “favor, in return-”

“No!”

 

The children both jumped, but Grunkle Ford didn’t give them time to recover.  He just took each of them by the shoulders, and marched towards the edge of the circle.

“Your offer is very generous, but we can figure it out on our own, thank you.”  His tone was trembling, but also not open to argument.

“WHAT?!”

Immediately the candles’ flames shot up, like a blue fiery cage blocking their escape, and when Mabel looked back in the mirror she felt a chill of unusual terror when she saw that Bill’s body had become outlined with an angry-looking red light-

-but then, just as quickly, he relaxed back into yellow, and the flames died down, and he gave a little indifferent shrug, which was kind of impressive for something that didn’t even have shoulders.

“Fine, whatever.  But if you change your minds, you know where to find me…”

Slowly, his image faded away from the mirror’s surface, replaced by their reflections, and the walls of flame faded back into regular candles, which at this point were mostly puddles of wax.

---

“...Grunkle Ford?” Mabel asked quietly after a moment, “Are you okay?”

Grunkle Ford swallowed, and ran a hand through his wonderful floofy hair, but then looked down at her and tried to smile.  “Yes, thank you, Mabel, I’m all right.”  He pulled out his pocket watch, and flinched.  “We’ve been here too long.  But we need to find-he said we’ve seen Soledad coming out of it...that probably means it’s somewhere in the castle…”

He paced around in a circle, burying a hand in his hair.  “It wouldn’t be anywhere conspicuous...but what rooms have we seen him in on a regular basis?”

Dipper’s eyes lit up.  “The kitchen!”

Then all of them looked at each other and said in startled unison, “The broom closet!”

 

Since Mabel sometimes felt kind of dumb compared to her brother and uncle, having the same realization along with them was a small spark of delight that helped with all the unhappy feelings that were going on in her little body right now.

They had seen Soledad stepping out of there some mornings when they came down for breakfast, and because he was usually carrying cleaning supplies they’d always assumed he was just getting their stuff for the day...and that one night they’d gone stargazing, Mabel kind of saw him coming out of there, even though it was the middle of the night, but she hadn’t really connected the dots then...it was the perfect place to hide a secret room!

...But she didn’t believe what Bill had said about Soledad tricking them.  She refused to believe it.

 

Grunkle Ford was frowning thoughtfully again, and looking back and forth between her and Dipper.

Finally he said, “...Mabel, would you mind going back and helping with the tour?  Dipper and I are going to test this theory.”

Mabel felt a small twinge of hurt join the other knots in her tummy.  “Why can’t I come too?”

“We need you to cover for us.  If Soledad or any of the animals ask-well, you know what I mean-where we are, tell them we, um, are taking a bathroom break or something.”

Clearly Grunkle Ford didn’t have a lot of experience in lying to people, but he didn’t give her a chance to say that as he herded them to the exit.  His eyes glinted eerily as he retrieved their candle and opened the door so they could slip over the pile of rocks again.

“We’re getting our answers today, no matter what.  This all ends now.”

Notes:

Dum DUM DUMMMM!!!!

Chapter 30: Not what he seems, part 2

Notes:

Thought I should mention that this fanfiction has gotten a fanfiction. How's that for meta?
Specifically, Draco_12 has written an AU of this that's basically the same story, but with an additional OC character that makes things a little more interesting.
You can find it at their (sorry Draco, I don't actually know what your pronouns are) AO3 page, or just by going to this link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35036614/chapters/87266638

Dipper had so many questions right now.

What was Bill?  How much did he know, and why wasn’t he telling them?  Was he under some kind of compulsion not to tell on account of the deal he’d apparently made with Soledad?  What was the deal?!  What dark secrets was the beast hiding from them?!?!

Just like Grunkle Ford, he was eager to get the answers today .

 

He did feel uncomfortable about Mabel being left out of finding the secret room, however.  After all, everything else they’d discovered in this investigation had been by the two of them working and searching for it together.  And even though a little part of him was excited by the idea of an investigation between him and Grunkle Ford...he didn’t want it to be at his sister’s expense.

As they peered out from under the tapestry to make sure the coast was clear, and then slipped out onto the staircase, he glanced up at his grunkle and cleared his throat nervously.

“...Can’t Mabel stay with us?  She’s part of this too.”  He noticed out of the corner of his eye the grateful smile his sister shot at him.

Grunkle Ford actually seemed a little caught off guard by the question.  He stammered for a second, before saying, “Well-Soledad might have noticed our absence by now, we don’t want him getting suspicious.  And Mabel is far better at charming her way out of trouble than either you or I are.”

Dipper couldn’t argue with that part.  But still...

“Yeah, but-couldn’t Tate and McGucket just-”

And then they heard the sound of dainty paws clambering down the stairs, and an inquisitive-sounding yap.

Wendy.

After a moment in which the three of them froze, Mabel gathered up her skirts and set her jaw.

“Don’t find anything too cool without me.”  And she hurried up the curve of the staircase to intercept the fox, saying loudly, “I’m coming, keep your fur on!”

Dipper hesitated, but the pressure of Grunkle Ford’s hand on his shoulder urged him not to waste this opportunity she’d given them.

---

***

---

The pain was back.

Not quite as all-consuming as it had been the day he first arrived at this castle, but it was like a persistent thrumming in the back of Ford’s skull, accompanied by the occasional vague flash of...something.

And he had a suspicion that it had to do with that creature they’d just met.

He was feeling a strange mixture of emotions regarding Bill.  Curious, definitely-what he was, where he had come from, how much did he know, that sort of thing.  But even stronger than the curiosity was the odd sensation that something about him was...wrong.

Or bad.

And the most frustrating part was that he had no idea why .

He should be delighted -no, overjoyed at this opportunity to study a new mysterious life form from an entirely new world who claimed to have the answers he was seeking, even if he was being irritatingly cryptic about them (maybe that was just a sign that he was some kind of trickster god, like Loki or Anansi)!  He was supposed to be above the narrow-minded paranoia and prejudice that most superstitious people had towards things that were different!

Things like him.

And yes, maybe Bill was...a little strange, but he wasn’t quite of their world, and it was hardly fair to judge him by the standards of their society and culture, wasn’t it?  More than anything, he should be a dream come true!

...And yet.

And yet, something about the way he’d talked to them...Ford didn’t like it.

He’d only spoken to the children, barely even looking at Ford except for when he’d declined his offer.  And normally he would have been more indignant about that, except for the way Bill had looked at Dipper and Mabel.

Almost like they were something to eat.

Ford tried to push the unpleasant thoughts aside for the time being, and focused on leading the way to the kitchen.

 

Even when they reached the ground floor, he could faintly make out the sounds of laughter from upstairs.

“They’re probably in the room with the Great and Terrifying Sascrotch,” Dipper mused.

“Yes...that does sound about right.”  Ford still had his objections to that particular exhibit, but he had been almost unanimously overruled by the others on the grounds of it supposedly being “funny.”  Much to his chagrin, it appeared that they had been right.

Quietly man and boy crept into the kitchen.  It looked the same as usual, even up to the table having been moved back to its proper spot during the night.  The breakfast dishes had long been washed and set in the drying rack, waiting to be returned to their rightful owners from the village if they remembered to claim them, and the chairs were all pushed in around the table.

And then Ford’s gaze drifted to the broom closet door, and a little throb of pain behind his eyebrows was enough to make him lean against the counter dizzily.

He faintly heard Dipper’s voice frantically calling his name, faintly felt tiny hands grabbing his arm, and had to force his eyes open and give him a little nod.

“...I’m all right,” he croaked.  “This-just means we’re getting close.”  He clenched his jaw, and took a step towards the door-

And nearly jumped out of his skin at a surprised bark from the kitchen entrance.

---

***

---

The Boss had pulled Soos aside and told him to go see where his friends, Sweaty Anxious Dude and Grumpy Fluffy Dude, had gotten to; he had immediately put his nose to the task, because he had spent the last ten years trying to be a Good Dog, and part of being a Good Dog was listening to the Boss and doing whatever he asked.

Besides, he’d been wondering for a while where his friends were.  Don’t get me wrong, he loved Sparkling Shrieking Girl and her pig, he loved Abuelita, heck, he even loved Wendy and Pacifica...but he liked it better when all his friends were together at once so he’d know where they were.

For some reason, whenever he hadn’t seen his friends in a while, part of him worried that they had left and weren’t going to come back.

 

His nose picked up their scents quickly enough as he wandered down the stairs.  Idly he noticed that Sweaty Anxious Dude was even more sweaty than usual; did that mean he should change his name to Extra Sweaty Anxious Dude?  It didn’t have quite the same ring to it...eh, he’d workshop it.

The really worrying part, though, was where he’d picked the scents up: lingering outside the Bad Area.

The area where the Boss said none of them were ever ever ever supposed to go, where it smelled like...bad things.

Like the way a hawk looked when it caught a mouse, and was carrying it up into the trees to eat it.

They weren’t there anymore, but if the stinging in his nose was any indication...they’d actually gone inside?!

Soos wanted to go get the Boss, because he always knew what to do, he’d know how to handle this...but he was pretty busy right now, getting all their new friends to give him pieces of pretty shiny metal, and he’d given Soos specific orders: go get Sweaty Anxious Dude and Grumpy Fluffy Dude and bring them back.

After a moment of anxiously dancing from one paw to the other and trying not to fall down the stairs again, he sniffed to figure out which way they’d gone, and hurried down the stairs after them.

 

He was very confused when he found them in the kitchen.

I mean, it wasn’t that weird a spot to be, especially since it was getting close to lunchtime if the noises his stomach was making were any indication, except that a) they weren’t supposed to be there, and b) they didn’t seem like they were getting food.  They appeared to be heading for the broom closet.

Huh; didn’t know they liked cleaning so much.

No!  Focus!

Soos barked to get their attention.  What’s the big idea, dudes!  I told you to stay out of the Bad Area, you were kinda supposed to listen to that!  And now you’re slacking off work- really not cool!

Grumpy Fluffy Dude groaned into his hand; Soos couldn’t help picking up that he didn’t smell so good.  “Of all the times-”

“Easy, Grunkle Ford.”  Sweaty Anxious Dude slowly stepped over to Soos, and smiled down at him, while reaching out with one hand to scratch that spot on top of his head that he could never reach on his own.  “Hey, Soos.  Who’s a good boy, huh?”

Hey!  I know what you’re doing, dude, and it’s not gonna-ooh, yeah, little to the left.  Ooh, that’s the spot…

Soos could feel his tail beginning to wag, and his hind leg started thumping, despite his efforts to force his thoughts back on track.

No...gotta focus on the plan...be a Good Dog, finish scolding them for breaking the rules, bring them back upstairs, get the Boss’s approval forever-oh, yes, more there please, your tiny fingers are just perfect for this kind of scratching-

He heard too late the click of a door opening, and saw Grumpy Fluffy Dude disappear into the broom closet.

Soos jerked away from Sweaty Anxious Dude’s touch, and lunged towards the closet.  Sweaty Anxious Dude tried to pull him back, which just resulted in him dragging both of them to the doorway-

-in time to see Grumpy Fluffy Dude press on three of the stones in the wall, one at a time, and make the wall open up!

---

***

---

Even though he’d suspected something like that was going to happen, Dipper still felt a chill run down his spine when there was a soft clicking noise, and a panel in the wall that up until then had been completely invisible slid open.

The chill only intensified when the opening revealed a set of long stone steps, lit up by an eerie green light from the ceiling and the walls.

“...Is that-magic?” he asked breathlessly, both from awe and from the strain of his failed attempt to stop Soos.

“It’s...luminescence,” Grunkle Ford murmured.  “‘S from a special kind of moss I found and cultivated...that glows in the dark.  Schistostega pennata .  A very rare...and beautiful specimen…”  He staggered, and would’ve pitched straight forward if Dipper and Soos hadn’t both lunged forward to catch him.

“Maybe you should just stay up here,” Dipper said, staring worriedly at his drawn, pale face.

But Grunkle Ford shook his head stubbornly, and tried to straighten up.  “I just need...to find whatever it is my brain is trying to remember about this place.  I’ll be all right.”

Soos gave a small, worried bark, and looked back and forth between them.

Even though he wasn’t sure how much the dog actually understood, Dipper knelt down so he could meet his eyes.

“Soos, I know Soledad probably doesn’t want us going in here.  But it’s the final clue we need to get Grunkle Ford’s memories back, because he used to live in this castle, until something went wrong and made him lose them, and we think it has something to do with Soledad.”

Soos tilted his head, and made a concerned whining noise.

“Yeah.  Pretty freaky, huh?”

After a moment, Soos nodded, and stepped forward to give Dipper’s face a vigorous lick.

Dipper laughed, and tried unsuccessfully to push him back.  “Does that mean you’ll help us?”

To his relief, the dog nodded again, and then scooted to place his head under Grunkle Ford’s hand.

Grunkle Ford gave a nod of reluctant acquiescence, and then, after Dipper stood up and moved to support his other side, the three of them began their descent.

Notes:

Believe it or not, that kind of moss is real. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Chapter 31: Not what he seems, part 3

Notes:

Don't worry, we're getting close to one of the moments you've all been waiting for.
It's been difficult for me to write lately; not least because this week a lot of family came to visit, and I ended up ripping a fingernail, then the next day I got a big blister on my thumb, and then the day after THAT I sprained my ankle.
I think the universe is out to get me.

The dark, eerie staircase alone was like something out of a story, or a dream.

Or a nightmare.

The fact that they encountered half of a skeleton sprawled across the first spiral did nothing to help Dipper’s nerves, even though the presence of a set of antlers at least assured him that it was a deer skeleton, and not...anything else.  Even Soos whimpered and huddled against Grunkle Ford’s leg as they passed it.

It got colder the farther they descended.  Not the same kind of cold as it had been in the room with Bill in it, just the ordinary cold of being somewhere underground...but that was still cold enough for Dipper to feel goosebumps rising on his arms, and make him glad that he wasn’t going down here by himself.  It also didn’t help that they found a few more pieces of skeleton scattered here and there.

It was hard to tell if Grunkle Ford was getting better or worse in the sickly green light; his face was still screwed up in a grimace of pain with every step they took, and if Dipper focused he could feel the arm he was supporting shaking.  However, Grunkle Ford’s expression was of the kind best described as “single-minded determination,” and he could tell that no amount of pain, logic or even desperate pleading would stop him from going the rest of the way into this hidden basement.

All Dipper could do was take as much of his weight as he could get away with and keep moving forward.

 

Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened out into a large stone cavern.

The moss was more plentiful here, making the green tinge more prominent, but there was also a tiny table resting next to the stairs, which had an old dusty lantern resting on it.

In a single automatic motion Grunkle Ford reached into his coat and produced his matches, using one to light the lantern.  A second later he realized what he’d done, and his face screwed up in another grimace of pain before he shook his head a few times and picked it up, turning the flame to its highest point.

Dipper’s heart rose into his mouth as the three of them got a good look at the Lair of the Beast.

---

In the middle of the cavern lay a heap of skins and the torn remains of blankets, presumably where Soledad slept.  There were a few piles of bones next to it, several of which looked like they’d been bitten in half or crushed.  And it was probably the tidiest part of the cavern.

Everywhere else Dipper looked he saw piles of smashed and broken furniture, twisted shards of glass, and creepy stains that looked like they were from things that had been thrown at the walls.  Shredded pieces of tapestry hung from the walls, and if Dipper looked closely he thought they used to be yellow, or at least have something yellow in the center.  And there was a thick abundance of familiar gray fur strewn everywhere, in addition to some dark reddish stains that he could only hope weren’t organic.

It looked disturbingly like what you’d see if you visited the home of a serial killer.

What’s Soledad been doing down here?!

“My lab…” Grunkle Ford murmured dazedly, turning in a small circle and looking somewhere between confused and distressed, “what’s happened to my-”

“Look!”  As he’d turned, a small glint of gold in the pile of blankets had reflected the lantern’s light, and when Dipper looked that way he saw a hint of dark red accompanying it.  He rushed to the nest, picking his way through the bones-and felt his chest clench again, this time in delight, at the sight of the familiar journal, completely intact and unharmed, with a pile of paper and an ink bottle resting next to it.

He snatched the book up, barely paying attention to the extra paper, and turned towards his uncle with a grin as wide and delighted as Mabel’s usually was as he held it against his skinny chest.

“Grunkle Ford, we got it!  Now we can-!”

The words died on his lips when he realized that Grunkle Ford wasn’t even looking at him; he had wandered, with Soos at his side, away to a different corner of the cavern.  Slowly, moving like a sleepwalker, he stepped around and over the piles of destruction until he reached his destination: a spot that was hidden behind the shredded remains of a curtain of some kind.

Grunkle Ford set the lantern down, and began gently clearing the scraps of cloth away.

After a moment of standing there in confusion, Dipper hurried towards him to see what could possibly be more important than the reason they’d come here in the first place.

It turned out to be an old, dusty painting leaning against the wall.

Grunkle Ford picked up one of the strips of cloth and wiped it down, then slowly let it drop from his fingers, before picking up the lantern and stepping back to let the light shine on it.

It was a painting of an old sailboat, clearly shipwrecked and with no sails to speak of, resting on a beach, with two figures standing on either side of it.

One of the people had had its face slashed to ribbons, until it was unrecognizable.

The other was Grunkle Ford.

 

Way younger, with his face unlined and a thick mop of brown curls that looked a lot like Dipper’s and Mabel’s...but the awkward smile and the large spectacles were unquestionably his.

Dipper blinked, and looked up at him questioningly.  “...Who’s that?”  He pointed to the other person.

Grunkle Ford made a strangled sound in the back of his throat.  “My g_d...he’s...he’s-”

And then he let out a gasp and collapsed to his knees, clutching his hair and letting out a high-pitched keen of agony that seemed equal parts physical...and emotional.

---

***

---

The kids and Ford were up to something; Soledad could feel it in his bones.

His biggest clue was that they’d gone missing halfway through the tour, and then Mabel had come back with Wendy and made some excuse about her twin and uncle taking a “really long snack break,” and didn’t seem to realize that she was trying to con a conman.  Plus, something about the way she smelled was making the fur on the back of his neck stand on end, because it smelled like the Corridor, and if they’d gone in there they were all grounded, end of the deal or not, especially Ford-!

But all he did was put on a smile for the audience, and after putting her back to work (where he could keep an eye on her) he’d pulled Soos aside and told him to go sniff his missing staff out.

 

Ten minutes passed, and there was no sign of either Soos or the humans he’d been sent in search of.

Soledad was not pleased; not least because their absence meant having to cut the tour short by a few rooms (it wasn’t like he could play the Horrible Preteen Wolf Boy himself, after all, and if they were going where they shouldn’t-!).  But he resignedly led the villagers back downstairs towards the area they’d set up as the gift shop, where you could buy such amazing delights as one of the loose stones from the most decrepit parts of the castle, “magic amulets” and “healing crystals” he’d picked up here and there, and special parchment the villagers (if there were any literate ones among them) could use to send letters (specifically they were a series of half-sheets of paper with a picture of the castle, with Soledad himself posing in front of it, drawn on one side by Ford and colored in by Mabel, and emblazoned with the caption “I Survived the Mystery Castle!”).

“Remember, folks, we put the ‘fun’ in ‘no refunds!’” he said aloud, giving his cane a casual little twirl as he accepted handfuls of other people’s hard-earned money, to a small wave of delighted laughter.  He shot another surreptitious glance towards the doorway, and his stomach curdled with worry and irritation when it continued to be empty.

Thankfully, most of the crowd had started making its way towards the exit by this point, but there were still enough of them around that he didn’t feel like he could get away with leaving himself (however much he felt tempted to screw all this and go anyway, because he just knew that something was wrong).  So he turned to his second most loyal (when she wasn’t being lazy) employee.

“Wendy, go see what’s keepin’ Soos and the dweebs.”

The fox, who had been grooming herself on the counter, made a small irritated sigh through her nose, but she was just about to jump off of it and do as she’d been asked when a deep voice behind them half-bellowed, “Wendy?!”

 

It was the lumberjack from the village; the one whose mill Soledad had snatched the boards from.

Thankfully he hadn’t said anything about that whole incident, even if he did give the door kind of a funny look as he entered the castle, but now he was staring with wide eyes at Wendy.

Wendy’s ears flattened against her head, which tilted in confusion as she looked up at the big man.

Soledad vaguely noticed that several other people had stopped to stare in interest at this new event, and watched the man’s hands carefully, in case he decided to reach for that axe at his belt.  Trying to figure out what was getting him so worked up.

To his surprise, the lumberjack surged forward, shoving past him without seeming to notice he was there, and slammed his big hands on the counter in front of the fox, before leaning down and peering at her.  She immediately shrank as far back as she could get and uttered a warning growl, but he ignored it, slowly reaching out to her with one trembling hand.

“Wendy?  Sweetie, is that you?”

Her growl cut short, and the ears slowly rose.

To Soledad’s alarm, she leaned forward and sniffed the meaty hand; after a moment, her tail lifted and actually wagged , and she gave him a small, tentative lick.

What is happening what is happening what in the heck is goin’ on-

And then he was subjected to something he’d never expected to see in his life: the biggest, manliest man in the village scooped Wendy up into his arms and cradled her against him like a baby; for a moment he just stood there, shoulders shaking and stroking her fur, before he slowly turned to face Soledad, eyes shining with tears, and asked in a rumbling, quivering voice, “...What did you do to my daughter?”

Chapter 32: Not what he seems, part 4

Notes:

Yes, I know this chapter is short.
You'll thank me later.

It was like a punch to the brain.

 

Soledad stammered, looking at the big man who was hugging Wendy and claiming that she was his-

He glanced at her familiar long face, hoping she could provide some kind of explanation-but it had changed, replaced by a scrawny little girl with long red pigtails, looking up at him with frightened, defiant eyes and clutching a hatchet in one tiny fist-

Then Soledad blinked, and she was herself again, and looked just as shocked and bewildered as he was.

 

Behind him he could hear the shocked whispers of the crowd, pushing forward to get a good look at these new developments.

“Is that really-”

“-disappeared a couple years ago, didn’t she?”

“But how could-”

“I thought she’d just run away-”

“Is this part of the show or something?”

And through it all, that worst whisper of all started to spread: black magic.

Sorcery.

Demon.

MONSTER.

Soledad knew the beginnings of an angry mob when he saw one.

 

“I-wait a sec, ladies and gentletourists, calm down!  This is all just a big misunderstanding!”  One paw stole surreptitiously into the folds of his clothing, where he kept a few emergency smoke bombs.  He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to use them, but then again he should’ve known better than to get his hopes up-

“Wait!”

In a swift movement Mabel leaped up onto the counter, glaring indignantly at the rising crowd.

“Stop that for just one second!” she ordered; and lo and behold, it actually worked.   They all stopped advancing, and looked at her in surprise and confusion.  “Don’t you dare hurt Grunkle Soledad!”

...Did she just call me…?

“What’s a grunkle?” a voice demanded from the mob.  “Is that some kind of title, like a duke?”

“Yes!  It’s the best kind of title there is!”  Mabel put her hands on her hips; Soledad couldn't help thinking that he'd never been more confused and more fond of her.  “And if I know anything about my grunkle, it’s that he’s a big old sweetheart who’d never hurt someone else’s kid, or turn them into animals or whatever!”

...He didn’t know if he agreed with all of that, but he tried to look as sweet and non-child-threatening as possible.

“Then what happened to Corduroy’s kid?” someone else asked.  “People usually don’t just turn into animals all by themselves!”

“...It’s probably a curse or something!” Mabel said after a moment.

Soledad felt his fur stand on end.  Curse…

“And who cast the curse?!”

“We don’t know yet!  We’re still trying to figure out who put the one on Grunkle Ford that messed up his memories-!”  She gave a guilty squeak, and clamped her hands over her mouth.

Wait, what?!  The nerd’s got memory problems too?!  But then-does that mean he’s the one who used ta-

Something was doing more than nudging at the back of Soledad’s mind-it was actively throwing itself forward, trying to be heard through the wall of pain that was rising up in response, because this was important , like a puzzle piece trying to fall into place-

“It’s true!”

That particular voice belonged to the old codger who’d driven the metal monster here; he pushed his way forward, with the droopy younger guy at his side.  “Somethin’ happened here thirty years ago, and we think it was a curse, but we don’t know who cast it!”

“How do you know that this creature didn’t cast it?!”  A finger pointed at Soledad, belonging to that farmer who used to own Waddles.

 

This time the punch was to the beast’s gut.  He staggered a step backwards, digging his claws into the counter as icy panic crawled up his spine.

Maybe-maybe I did cast it...and it backfired on me or somethin’, that’s why I don’t remember it?  And all those nightmares...they always leave me feelin’ like something terrible happened-oh Sixer, what’d I do to you?!  And what about Wendy, and-

“No!” Mabel insisted.  “Grunkle Soledad’s not like that!  He wouldn’t-”

“How do you know?!”  The farmer glared at Soledad.  “Last I checked, there weren’t an awful lot o’ giant talkin’ tigers around these parts!  He could be capable of anything , including magic!”

“Yeah!” someone else chimed in.  “How do we know this whole tour wasn’t just a scheme to lure us into getting cursed too?!  Was that your plan, monster?!”

“Maybe he’s responsible for the Northwest kid disappearing!”

Pacifica let out a startled-sounding squawk.

“Hey!”  The droopy guy finally spoke up.  “How about, before y’all go back ta makin’ accusations, ya actually give him a chance ta speak up for hisself?”

There was an angry murmuring from the crowd, but against all odds the demand worked.

Once they’d settled down he turned and, even with his hat covering his eyes, Soledad could tell he was staring straight at him.

“How ‘bout it, beast?  Why don’t ya tell us who ya are?”

Because I don’t even know, and I’m scared that all of you might be right about me.

However, just as Soledad was opening his mouth and taking a deep breath, ready to somehow talk his way out of this like he always did-

“Stanley.”

---

For the third time in the last five minutes Soledad felt a full-on jolt of shock go through his system; this one, though, trumped all the rest one hundred percent.

Even though the word was softly spoken, every head in the room turned towards the source of it: Ford, Dipper and Soos were all standing in the doorway.

Even from this side of the room he could smell that Dipper was more sweaty and anxious than usual, and Soos, by far more concerning, wasn’t his usual irrepressibly cheerful self.

But Ford…

His bangs were damp with sweat, and as he staggered into the room past the crowd, his glassy eyes looked directly into Soledad’s, allowing him to see that they looked about to overflow with tears, just like the lumberjack’s.

Despite that, his mouth began curling up into a small, trembling smile as he said his next words.

“He’s Stanley.  He’s my brother.”

---

(Behind him, Soos uttered a small, startled yip, before his eyes rolled back and he slowly toppled onto his back, with all four paws sticking up in the air.

In the crowd, someone whispered, “...Is this part of the show?”

“I can’t even tell anymore,” someone else hissed back.)

Chapter 33: The obligatory flashback chapter

Notes:

Hopefully this answers at least most of your questions.

Glass Shard was the poorest, least respected piece of land in the kingdom, and was home to its stubbornest, least tractable people.

And one of the stubbornest, least tractable of them all was Lord Filbrick Pines.

As far as lords went, he wasn’t that high up the social ladder, particularly since their family name had fallen into decay ages ago, and the wealth and status he’d managed to regain had been acquired by actually working (gasp!) for a living...but being able to restore it somewhat was at least enough to make him proud of himself for returning into the higher realms of society.

High enough that he quickly became greedy for more, and expected his family to help him get there by any means necessary.  Even his two youngest sons, who for the most part were nothing more than a nuisance to him.

 

Neither he nor his wife had expected to have twins, several years after their older son Sherman; they’d even less expected to have one of them with an extra finger on each hand.

When they were born he’d wanted to get rid of one of them (preferably the older one) to avoid rumors of witchcraft from the superstitious locals...but Lady Caryn had been heartbroken by the idea, and adamantly refused.

Reluctantly Filbrick conceded (after several arguments, and a few incidents involving broken furniture), and after naming them Stanford and Stanley he more or less washed his hands of the matter.

---

Stanford and Stanley had grown up to be best friends, constantly wandering around town and the nearby beach in search of adventure (or trouble, whichever came first).  They were both bright, curious children, who always knew how to be simultaneously an amusement and the bane of their existence of every grownup who knew them.  And with their father, it usually felt like the latter.

Ford was always seen as the smart one; by the time he was in his teens he had already surpassed every tutor that had been given the job of teaching him and Stan (and he may or may not have driven some of them to tears with his talent for poking holes in established theories and long-accepted facts by asking questions nobody had ever thought to ask before), and had an unending fascination for all the mysteries that normal people dismissed as strange and unknowable.  Because of this habit, he was often warily seen as the next potential Faust, if not an outright changeling or witch.

You would expect, then, that Lord Filbrick would prefer Stanley.  After all, he had the average number of fingers, and he wasn’t as intellectually curious as Ford, preferring to attempt to solve a problem by punching it, and usually the more sociable of the two.

But for some reason, Stan seemed to stir even greater distaste than Ford.  He was always given the harsher scoldings, not to mention the harsher punishments, and any indication of what Filbrick viewed as “weakness” in him was not to be tolerated.

These things all worked together to make theirs an extremely lonely childhood; while they had their mother and Sherman, for the most part the only friends they had were each other.  And it seemed like there was nowhere else in the world where they would ever fit in.

 

One day they’d discovered an old, shipwrecked sailboat-honestly the coolest thing either of them had ever seen-and Stan had decided that very day that they should fix it up, and one day when they were big enough, they would use it to sail away from this place full of cruel, narrow-minded jerks who looked down on him and Ford.  They would travel the world, looking for buried treasure and adventure and finding weird things to study and/or punch to their heart’s content.

And at the time, Ford had been infected with enthusiasm for the idea too, and gleefully shared a high-six with Stan in celebration of it.

He wasn’t completely sure when everything had gone wrong.

 

I mean, arguably most people would think it was That Day.

But it must have started sometime before that-a few years after they found the boat, when Filbrick first started introducing him and Stan to higher society, in the hopes of getting one of them into a good position in court that would allow them to advance their status-especially after Shermie ‘disgraced the family name’ by falling in love with a woman of lower standing and married her against their father’s wishes.

When more people started noticing Ford for his intelligence, instead of just his hands, and offering him praise upon praise for it, and actually wanting to hear his ideas-

-and he’d known Stan was feeling a little left behind, but he’d assumed he’d adapt and put his natural charisma and charm to good use, instead of trying to cling onto Ford.

And eventually, word of Ford’s brilliance had finally reached the ears of the duke himself, and he had sent a messenger to Glass Shard to meet Ford, and see for himself.

 

You see, the duke was a very scientifically-minded man, and he tended to fill his court with the most brilliant, witty, and/or beautiful people he could find.  If he had found Ford suitable for his court, the rewards would have been...immeasurable.

Caryn had been beside herself with excitement for her son, and even Filbrick came out of his shell enough to tell him that he was impressed with him.  And so Ford had immediately started work on a project that he was sure would impress the duke’s emissary: an alchemical project that could turn lead into gold.

Stan was the only person in the family who wasn’t thrilled with the idea.

Oh, he’d smiled, and told Ford that of course he’d be happy surrounded by a bunch of nerds...but in hindsight, he clearly hadn’t been happy about it at all.

But Ford had barely noticed as he perfected his experiment, already with his head filled with dreams of being a favorite of the duke’s court.

 

And then, on That Day, when he’d presented the experiment to the duke’s messenger...it hadn’t worked.

One of the bottles of chemicals he used had somehow broken from its base, causing it to tip over and lose one of the vital components in his process.

The messenger had dismissed him as a fraud, and left, unheeding of his pleas that something had gone wrong, that it had worked before, that he’d worked so hard for this.

As he’d stood there, wondering how everything had gone so horribly wrong in such a short amount of time, he discovered a clue that someone else had been near his experiment: a discarded peanut shell.

There was only one person who ate peanuts on a regular basis around here.

---

***

---

Stan never meant to break it.

He was just-scared, and angry, because Ford was going to leave him stuck in Glass Shard to be the dumb twin who no one thought would ever amount to anything.

He’d snuck into the room where the experiment was kept, just to try to make it work for himself.

He’d vaguely had the idea that he could learn how to make gold too, so maybe the duke would want him to come along with Ford; when he’d seen all the different beakers filled with different levels of liquid, though, he’d known that he wasn’t smart enough for this.

In frustration he’d snarled at the experiment, “Ugh, you’re ruining my LIFE!” and slammed a fist down on the table.

To his horror, a bottle had immediately snapped off the thingy on the bottom, and started to tip precariously onto its side.

Stan barely caught it in time, and after agonizing for a moment about what to do he’d just leaned it against the wall behind them.  It wobbled a little bit, but when he left the room it had been perfectly steady.

He’d told himself that it would be fine.

Probably.

---

***

---

...To make a long story short, Ford had been incensed when he put the puzzle pieces together.

And so had Filbrick, who upon learning what happened to deny him-I mean, his family -a chance into higher society, declared that Stan was no longer his son until he could provide the fortune they’d been denied.

Stan had tried to plead with them, saying it had been an accident, but he was unceremoniously thrown out of the house without so much as a final high-six from his enraged twin.

It was the last time he would see Stan for ten years; he spent much of that time using the circumstances of their separation as an excuse to ignore the hollow emptiness in his chest whenever he thought about him, and tried to tell himself that Stan was doing just fine.

---

***

---

Stan was not doing fine.

Honestly, he was lucky he hadn’t died in the first week of his disownment; he’d never had to survive on his own before, and was forced to learn all the tricks for doing so the hard way.

This meant that he had to spend a lot of time traveling; searching for work, searching for gold, searching for shelter from the enemies that he began to rapidly acquire.

He had to learn how to fight and steal and trick people and get out of town fast afterwards, and not trust anyone because that was how you got killed.

And he tried to ignore the hollow emptiness in his chest whenever he thought about Ford, and tried to tell himself that he didn’t need him either.

---

***

---

Eventually Ford went to a university many miles away from Glass Shard.

It wasn’t the duke’s court, but it was a chance to work harder and challenge himself more than he ever had before; despite his lamenting over that lost opportunity, he pushed himself to succeed, and graduated with the highest honors.

He also managed to do something he’d never done on his own before: make a friend.

Fiddleford Hadron McGucket; a young man with an avid interest in building automatons and playing the banjo.  He was kind, and friendly, and despite his natural anxiety was often more than capable of holding his own against Ford’s occasional prickliness and tendency to absorb himself in his work.

Best of all, rather than being repelled by Ford’s extra fingers, more than anything he found them interesting, endearing him to Ford forever.

Even after they went their separate ways when their studies were completed, he thought of his old friend fondly.

 

Ford had heard occasional rumors while he was growing up about his family’s old castle in Gravity Falls; how strange creatures were said to inhabit the nearby woods, and the people in the nearby village were said to occasionally be even stranger.

So when he finished at the university, it seemed only natural for him to go there, and see the weirdness for himself.

He was not disappointed.

Gnomes, Killbillies, tree giants-every day he set off into the woods to study them all, writing his findings down in a beautiful journal that he’d made himself.

He wondered obsessively about why they had all chosen to make their home here, but for the most part he was content with just learning everything he could about his strange, wonderful new home, only going down to the village for supplies and spending the rest of the time either in the woods or in the parts of his castle that weren’t falling apart.

And then he’d found the spell.

 

It was sequestered away in a cave deep in the forest, written on the rock wall by some distant unknown person: a spell that could supposedly be used to summon a being with answers.

The transcription warned of dire consequences were anyone to actually perform the spell, but Ford’s curiosity outweighed his common sense.

And then HE came to him in his dreams: Bill Cipher.

 

A creature from another world that bestowed all the praise and companionship Ford’s heart desired, and promised him not only the knowledge he was craving, but a chance to visit worlds outside his own...if he only did one small favor in return.

Namely, Bill wanted Ford to perform a complicated spell for him, which involved the creation of an incantation, and collecting multiple ingredients used to make a special set of candles over a long stretch of time, and a large mirror.  He claimed that once it was done, it would turn the mirror into a “magic mirror” that would allow Ford to see into other worlds, or, if he so desired, actually step into them and learn their secrets, and somehow Ford had never seen a need to potentially question that.

He’d even managed to contact Fiddleford to come and help him figure out this ritual, and potentially share in his greatest achievement, and join him in exploring these strange new worlds.

---

Too late he had learned the truth.

Fiddleford hadn’t felt right about this from the start, and had tried to suggest many times that Ford was dabbling in things that ought not to be dabbled in, but Ford hadn’t listened.

He hadn’t wanted to listen.

Not until Bill showed his true colors, after the incantation finally was completed and he was summoned, and upon Ford taking his hand he had repaid him for all his hard work and eagerness to please by taking control of his body and attempting to murder Fiddleford and Tate, claiming it was because they knew too much, but the way he said it implied that he just thought it would be fun.

He had been deaf to Ford’s pleas, pursuing man and boy through the castle until in desperation, Fiddleford had begged him to just erase his and Tate’s memories of their encounter.

As appalled as he was by the idea, Ford had reluctantly agreed to the opportunity to let his friend live, and promised Bill that he would find him a different victim in exchange.

---

***

---

Stan didn’t know how Ford had figured out where he was (namely in an old tavern that was in the middle of a town that was basically the slums of the slums, trying to hide from some very angry people who he owed a lot of money to that he’d never be able to pay back).

He knew even less why Ford had bothered to write to him after ten long years.

All he knew was that one day he received a letter from some place called Gravity Falls, with only a request for him to ‘PLEASE COME’ and a map indicating what part of town to travel to.

It wasn’t like he had anything better to do with his life, and (deny it though he might) a little part of him lit up with hope at the idea of seeing his brother again and perhaps making amends for his mistake...so at last he packed his meager belongings and made his way to Gravity Falls.

---

No, no, no.

Despite how that sounds, Ford was not planning on sacrificing Stan to Bill.  Sheesh, how heartless do you people think he is ?

He just wanted to buy himself some time.

---

It took Stan some time, specifically the better part of a month, but at last he reached Gravity Falls.

It was on a cold, rainy winter night when he finally reached it, and began making his way through the forest towards the castle that was apparently his brother’s new home.

He faintly remembered a few stories they’d heard about it growing up, and couldn’t help a small flicker of amusement in his chest; leave it to Ford to make the weirdest place in the country his new home.  He tried to ignore the small ache that sprang up in company with the amusement, or the irritation at himself for not thinking of this castle first.  Maybe then he could’ve had a place to stay all these years.

 

By the time he found the castle, he was soaked through, and desperately hoping for a chance of getting some shelter from the bitter cold.

Instead, what he got was a crossbow pointed in his face by a terrified brother, followed soon thereafter by a desperate request: he must take Ford’s journal away where no one could ever find it, after using the map inside to find a cave that was in the forest and destroying the picture inside.

First there had been shock, and confusion.  Ford had called him all this way, just to-tell him to go away again?

And, of course, it was rapidly replaced by anger.

 

To make an already long flashback somewhat shorter, Ford tried to plead his case, and Stan wouldn’t listen, telling him to find someone else to take his stupid journal.

He’d only gotten angrier when Ford protested that he didn’t have time to find someone else, and that Stan didn’t understand how important this was, and had lashed out with all the anger he’d been penning up all these years, so soon enough Ford was retaliating with some of his own.

And then, in the middle of their shouting and shoving and Stan throwing the journal to the ground and stomping on it, the air around them turned blue, and a strange yellow figure appeared in the sky above them and cackled, Well well well, looks like time’s up, brainiac!  Have you found me someone new to play with?

---

***

---

Ford hadn’t had a hope of making it out of this alive.

According to his plan, once the journal full of his most important research was gone so his legacy would live on, and the spell that could summon Bill had been destroyed for good, he had planned on resigning himself to whatever wrath the demon might decide to inflict on him.

But when the time came, as he reluctantly admitted to Bill that he didn’t have a new victim for him and was told that he’d have to make do with him instead...he’d lost his nerve.

He’d cried out and begged for mercy as his throat and wrists were encased in glowing blue chains that began to drag him towards the castle-

-until Stan stepped up and told Bill to take him instead.

 

“You can do whatever you want to me, just never hurt him again.”

“Stanley, no!”  Ford thrashed helplessly against his bonds.  “I’m not worth throwing your life away-!”

“I don’t have a life, Poindexter.”  He smiled at him sadly over his shoulder-and for the first time, Ford got a good look at how worn and tired his twin was, and realized that...neither of them had been ‘just fine’ for the last ten years.

And then Bill laughed.

“Now why would I wanna do that, little fish?  Why would I trade this brilliant, gullible little nerd, who could give me everything I want and more, for a pathetic loser like you?”  He yanked Ford’s chains-literally-forcing him to stumble and collapse to his knees in the mud.   “Sounds like a pretty stupid deal ta me.  Besides, he’s mine-from now until the end of time, like he promised.”

Ford pleaded with his eyes for Stan to just accept it and leave.  Instead, he tilted his head, and after a moment gave a small, indifferent shrug.

“...Yeah, I guess it’s for the best.  You probably couldn’t handle me.”

“WHAT.”

---

With just a few short sentences, Stan goaded Bill into making a deal.

A deal in which Stan was his to torment whenever and however he wished, in exchange for never harming Ford again-and that included getting in his head.

The little triangle flickered red with rage as their hands met, and the chains around Ford subsequently vanished.

He shakily got to his feet, trying to figure out another way to fix this, Stanley didn’t deserve this-

Bill snapped his fingers, and Stan began to scream.

And change.

His spine began cracking and bending; his hands stretched to twice their size, the fingers curving into large, menacing claws; long, thick fur sprouted across his skin.  Even if he hadn’t thought it would be shameful to do so, Ford wouldn’t have been able to look away, trapped as he was in horrified fascination.

Before long, where his brother had been there was a hulking, snarling, terrified beast crouched on the ground.

Bill cackled, and rubbed his tiny hands together.  “Now that that’s settled, we gotta make sure you never come back!”  He turned to Ford.

A fresh wave of cold horror cascaded through his heart.  “What-why?”

“Cuz that’s part of the deal!  I can never hurt you again, and the best way for me to ensure that is if you just forget all about this place.  And hey, believe it or not, that’s also the perfect torture for Stanley!  Cuz now I know that his greatest fear is-” his yellow form reddened, and his voice took on a deep, sepulchral tone- “BEING ALONE.”

Ford barely had a chance to look back at his brother, for their eyes to meet one last time, before Bill snapped his fingers again-

---

-and Ford woke up to find himself lying on the ground somewhere in the forest, and unable to remember how he’d gotten there.

---

Dazed and confused, he’d found his journal lying in his coat pocket, and started to flip through it in search of some answers-maybe he’d stumbled into a fairy ring by accident?

Then he’d found a page wherein he’d sketched a familiar drawing...a drawing that looked like a triangle, with a note about his name being Bill-

Everything came flooding back to him.

Bill

Fiddleford and Tate

STANLEY

His brother had been cursed because of him and needed his help-

He’d gone tearing off into the forest without hesitation, but just as he reached the castle that horrible shrill voice echoed in his head, forcing him to his knees.

“SERIOUSLY?!  Okay, let’s try that again, this time without the learning aid!”

---

The next time Ford woke up, he had no memories of what had happened, and no journal to remind him.

He ended up stumbling dazedly into town, and it was by sheer luck that Fiddleford had found him and brought him home to live with him and his family.

And he’d been there ever since, always with the vague idea that something terrible had happened, especially whenever he heard those terrible roars in the middle of the night...but unable to ever remember what, or why.

---

***

---

The beast didn’t know who he was, or what he was doing in this old run-down castle.

He didn’t know why he had terrible nightmares at night, or why he wasn’t just another mindless animal.

But he did know that he was good at stealing and fighting, and coming up with jokes and stories.

And that he had no one to tell them to, because he was completely and utterly alone.

 

Sometimes people came to the castle, yes-especially after rumors started going around about there being a beast there-but it was mostly just to try and get a glimpse of (or worse, hunt) him, not because they were actually interested in seeing him as more than just a mindless animal.

He would either hide, if they seemed capable of doing any actual damage to him, or scare them off with a few echoing growls and snarls and the whole “appearing out of the corner of their eye and disappearing when they turned around” schtick if they didn’t.

But after years had passed, some humans came who were harder to get rid of.

An older woman and her grandson who’d been traveling for ages and needed a spot to stop and rest.

A scrawny little lumberjack’s daughter who’d run off into the woods looking for somewhere to hide after recently losing her mother, so she could cry about the injustice of it all without anyone pitying her.

An angry rich kid who felt like her parents didn’t really care about her, and had run away to see if they’d actually notice she was gone before dinner.

The beast found himself actually talking to these folks, and getting to know them-and it was such a welcome respite from his usual isolation that he was more accommodating and friendly than usual, letting them have shelter for a bit before planning to send them off as soon as they were ready to go.

And then he’d hear the cackling, and see the blue light starting to glow, and something deep at his core tried to help him get the people to safety before it was too late-

But when it faded he wouldn’t remember what had just happened before he blacked out, and there was a new animal (or two, in the first case) there, and all he was able to remember about them was their name.

 

Somehow they’d all stayed together, in the crumbling remains of the old castle.

Pacifica was the least thrilled about it at first; even though she didn’t appear to remember where she’d come from or who she was any more than the others did, she’d tried to leave so often the beast had lost track.  It took nearly getting shot by some of Lord Northwest’s chief hunters who’d wanted to present her to his lordship as a trophy to make her stay for good.

The beast talked to them as much as he could, and learned to read their faces and body language well enough to carry on full conversations...but he’d ached for the sound of a human voice; or at least, one that wasn’t screaming in terror at the sight of him.

 

And that was how things stood, until the overcast afternoon when two scared kids slipped through a crack in the wall to escape a pack of hungry Killbillies.

Notes:

I figured that turning lead into gold was a good enough equivalent to a perpetual motion machine.

Chapter 34: Some sunny day

How had he not seen it before?

Well, the obvious answer was that he had been cursed not to see it, but-now, as he looked at Sol-at Stanley , it seemed so clear who he was.

His laugh, his dry sense of humor, his way of charming everyone around them even as he exasperated them and made it clear that he was an unapologetic scoundrel-even the way he rubbed the back of his neck when he was feeling uncomfortable.  There was a reason why all of these things had felt so familiar .

His memories weren’t completely restored, not yet, but Ford remembered enough to know what had happened to them-both the good and the bad.  And as much as some things from their past still hurt, and definitely needed to be addressed…they could wait.

All these years, Ford had had the feeling that something horrible had happened to him; that he’d lost something important, even if he couldn’t remember what it was.  And now he’d finally found it.

 

Stanley was frightened.

Ford could tell he was trying to hide it, but he recognized the nervous way that his claws were twitching and the way his eyes were darting back and forth, even as he straightened his back and shifted his shoulders to try and make himself look bigger to the crowd of people staring at him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ford saw that Mabel had clamped her hands over her mouth in an attempt to cover the squeal rising behind them, and was visibly quivering with delight as she looked back and forth between him and Stanley; Dipper had made his way to her side, and was clearly experiencing a similar emotional overload, though his was based more on trying not to throw up.  Soos, Pacifica and María had all gathered around them, and were looking back and forth between him and their master with wide eyes.

“What-what’re you talking about?” Stan demanded at last, turning back to Ford desperately.  “Whaddya mean I’m your brother?”  His tail lashed the air.  “That’s crazy talk.  You’re talking crazy, Poin-”

He froze, and after a moment his eyes widened.

“...Wait.  I-I remember.”  Stan dug his claws into his head fur.  “I came here…because…you needed help.  Because-you did…you said you’d…”  He trailed off with a frustrated frown.

Ford nodded encouragingly, swallowing around the lump in his throat.  “Yes!  I made a horrible mistake thirty years ago, and…you ended up paying the price for it.”  He stepped closer, trying to think of something he could say or do that would help his brother remember faster.

A special nickname?

No, he’d always been either Stan or Stanley, or knucklehead when Ford was particularly exasperated with him.

Maybe reminding him about the boat?

That could work; it had been such an important part of their childhood…even if it had also been an eventual source of such pain.

And then something simpler, but equally special, came to mind, and he lifted his hand, palm up, fingers spread.

Instead of responding as he’d hoped, Stan immediately flinched back in alarm-which after a moment turned into confusion.

And then, slowly, a flicker of recognition swam across his face, and he started to lift his paw, a faint smile rising along with it.

Ford could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and it was all he could do not to skip the high-six and just pull Stan into a full-on crushing hug.

He didn’t know how he could possibly go about breaking his brother’s curse, but he was not going to rest until he figured it out.  It was the least he owed him, after everything he’d sacrificed-

…And then all hell broke loose.

---

The room suddenly filled with the same strange, ethereal blue light from the summoning chamber, and a high, demented cackling sent a chill of horror running down Ford’s spine.  Behind him, people cried out in surprise; had he been paying attention, he might have heard one of them asking how the heck they’d managed to make this part of the show.

Dipper and Mabel immediately ran to Ford, grabbing onto him on either side; in the same vein Soos yelped and pressed up against Stan’s legs, while Pacifica hopped onto his shoulder and buried her face under her wing.

“Awww, isn’t this sweet?”   The nasal whine echoed all around them, with no indication of where exactly its owner was.  “I dunno about you folks, but I just LOVE happy endings!  …Actually, no, that’s not exactly true.  I just love RUINING them!”

“I know that voice,” Stan growled; Ford glanced at him, and saw that his fur was standing on end all the way down his back to his tail, which under any other circumstances might have been more humorous.

“You sure do, Stanley!”   The door slammed shut, and all the lantern lights changed blue at once.  “I’m glad you do, because that means now the fun can begin!”

“What’re you-”

Stan toppled over, lifeless.

 

Soos yelped in alarm, and started pawing desperately at him; Pacifica hopped onto his chest and screeched, before pulling at his ear.

“Stanley!”

“Grunkle Sol-Grunkle Stan!”

Ford rushed forward in alarm, remembering too late what Bill was capable of-

A large gray paw lashed out and wrapped around his throat, as his brother’s body slowly sat up and opened its eyes.

Its bright, gleeful, yellow eyes.

“Miss me, Stanford?”

---

***

---

Bill had enjoyed it at first-having Stanford’s brother as his own personal plaything that was his to torment as he wanted, I mean.  There was so much pain and anguish to work with, even (or maybe especially) after stealing the pathetic loser’s memories, that he received hours of entertainment out of isolating him and torturing him with nightmares; almost enough to make up for his utter rage out of being tricked into making this deal in the first place.

He hadn’t even ever needed to possess Stanley, because he had so much more fun hurting him in other ways.

…But eventually, he got bored.

And a bored Bill was just as dangerous as a homicidally enraged Bill or a casually cruel Bill or just Bill in general.

 

He wanted Ford back.

Good old Fordsie would never have just blocked up the room where the summoning had occurred and never gone in there again, even if he was getting bad feelings about it; he wouldn’t have stopped until he got answers about what it was for, and therefore would have been perfect for giving Bill another avenue back into their world.  And there was so much ambition in him, so much desperate need to prove himself as better than everyone thought he was and that it was possible to make sense of a world that by its own design made no sense; it was like a delicious banquet that he’d only managed to have a taste of before it got snatched away forever.

He didn’t just want Ford back, he needed him back.

…But, according to the stipulations of his deal with Stanley, Bill couldn’t touch him.

No getting in his head, no sending him dreams, nothing.

He’d had a tantrum about it that lasted for ten years straight, and went over and over the deal with a fine-toothed comb, looking for some kind of loophole-until finally, a solution arrived in the form of two kids.

 

They’d managed, completely by accident, to find the journal, which in turn led them to the castle.  And, much to Bill’s everlasting (literally!) delight, Stanford had followed them like the perfect bait they were.

And even if he hadn’t shaken either of their hands, Bill’s deal with Stanley had never said anything about visiting the kids’ dreams and making them want to investigate the mysteries of this castle.

All of these events working together had weakened the curse just enough that Ford would start to remember, and hopefully, now that he had the facts straightened out, be willing and able to make a deal.

Because otherwise, nobody was going to leave this room alive.

Notes:

Oh, like you didn't know something like this was due to happen.

Chapter 35: Bill Ci the chaos guy

Pacifica and Soos hurriedly pulled away from their former master with cries of alarm that almost sounded human, then ducked out of reach as he turned to grin at them with his too-wide smile, before turning his gaze back to his prisoner.

Contrary to what you might expect, the grip around his throat wasn’t painful.  Aside from the feeling of his larynx being surrounded by fur, Ford wasn’t experiencing any real pressure, even as Bill put his other paw under himself and began trying to get up onto his new hind legs without releasing him.  It was almost like wearing a particularly thick fur collar.

However, the comparative gentleness only served to increase his terror, because Ford knew how strong his brother was in this form, and that Bill wasn’t the type to usually hold back on causing pain once he had someone right where he wanted them, so he had no idea why he had decided to hold back now.

Soon enough the demon was swaying on somewhat unsteady feet, and blinking his eyes one at a time; Ford vaguely remembered seeing him do the same thing when he’d been the one possessed, and that Bill had made a comment about how “deluxe” having binocular vision was.

“Whoa, it’s been so long since I had one of these things!  I almost forgot how wobbly your stupid flesh sticks are!”   Bill grinned at Ford as if they were sharing a private joke-which, in a way, he supposed they were.  Then he lifted Stan’s other paw, and flexed the claws in and out, giving Ford a lovely ( not ) reminder of how long and sharp they were.  His smile slowly widened.  “...But ya know, I don’t think I hate it.”   He dug his claws right into his palm, and shivered with sheer pleasure as several beads of blood sprang up in response.  “Hooo, what a rush!”

“Get-” Ford tried to speak in a firm tone, but he could feel how it wobbled and cracked at the edges.  He cleared his throat and tried again, with minimal success.  “Get out of my brother’s body, Bill.”

---

***

---

Behind them, the crowd murmured in confusion mixed with worry; had Ford’s attention drifted that way, he might have noticed Fiddleford standing among them.

Specifically he might have noticed that the moment the high, shrill voice started speaking, his poor friend had turned absolutely white , and as soon as he heard the name Bill Fiddleford grabbed Tate (who looked rather ashen himself) and began shoving his way through the cluster of people for the door.  He slammed into it at almost full force, and frantically grabbed for the knob.

It wouldn’t open.

With a panicked whine, Fiddleford increased his efforts, scrabbling and scratching at the unyielding door; the villagers surrounding him, upon seeing what was going on with him, joined in on the escape attempt with the same results.  No matter what they tried, the door wouldn’t move.

The rest seemed too transfixed by the drama going on in front of them to have realized they were prisoners just yet.

---

***

---

Bill didn’t seem to notice what was going on with the villagers; he just rubbed at his chin in mock thoughtfulness for a moment, leaving a few traces of blood in his fur, before looking back down at Ford and saying, “...Yeah, no, I don’t think I will.”

And then his eyes widened theatrically.   “Or at least, not without…” he leaned in, far too close to Ford for comfort, and said in almost a whisper, “...a suitable replacement.”

 

Ford’s blood ran cold.

He should have known.

From the moment Ford had invited him into their world, from the moment he’d shaken his hand, Bill had designated him as his property.  And now he wanted him back.

When he didn’t immediately give the answer he wanted to hear, Bill frowned and gave an impatient sigh.

“C’mon, Fordsie, just say yes.  I’ve been trapped in this stupid castle for thirty years, I wanna go out and get some exercise!  You know, a chance to prove my skills!”

If his actions towards people while he was within the confines of the castle were any indication, then even considering letting him out was…unthinkable.

But if he didn’t…what would he do to Stanley’s body instead?  Or with it?

Ford was desperately wracking his brain for a solution, something, anything that he could do to stop all this without having to concede to the demon’s demands.

And he was coming up with nothing.

“I can’t hear you-!”

The grip around his throat tightened the tiniest fraction, before with a visible effort Bill forced it to relax again.

“I might not be able ta hurt you , brainiac-”

What does he mean by that?

From the doorway there was a frustrated roar as Manly Dan tried to break a hole in the door with his axe, and instead bounced off it without leaving so much as a scratch, barely avoiding flattening Constable Durland or impaling Farmer Sprott as he crashed to the floor.

Bill looked in their direction with a nasty glint in his eyes.

“-but there’s a whole lotta other people in here I can hurt until ya change your mind.”

“No!  Bill, please!”

But Bill wasn’t listening; he finally released his hold on Ford’s throat, and strode to the edge of the crowd, which shrank back as far as they could with a mixture of confusion and nervousness.  He waved a paw, and strands of blue light came together from the walls, until they formed a sort of pyramid-like cage around the group of humans that forced them to cluster together before him.

“Hmm, let’s see…which one of you losers do I wanna start with?  So many options to choose from…eh, what the heck, I’ll just decide this the old-fashioned way!  Eenie, meenie, miney-” he lifted a claw, which pointed first towards Lazy Susan…then Chief Constable Blubs…then just as it was about to land on Tate, he let out a shrill yowl of pain.

“Give us back our uncle, you creep!”

 

“Mabel, get away from him!” Ford ordered in horror when he realized who it was that quite literally had a tiger by the tail.

His niece paid him no attention; she just gave it a final yank, and then rushed over and climbed up onto the counter.

“Hey, you body-switching warlock jerk!  Look at me and what I’m doing!”  She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at him before spinning around in a circle with her arms spread, making another unusual noise with her lips.

Bill growled, low and deep, and if he’d been in his own form odds were that he would have turned bright red.

“No!  Bill, leave her alone-!”  Ford tried to step in his path, and a moment later found himself encased in a pyramid like the others, only much smaller.

“MABEL!  RUN!”  He pounded on the bars and tried frantically to somehow pull them apart, but all he could do was watch as the demon bore down on Mabel in four long strides, claws splayed and seething with rage, while she stared back at him, clearly afraid but standing her ground.

“You know, I would say that this is nothing personal, Shooting Star, except it absolutely is-”

Just as he began to swipe at her with a blow that could easily eviscerate a Killbilly, let alone a twelve-year-old girl, Dipper leaped out from under the counter with a wild yell, wielding what looked like a kind of club or truncheon in his skinny little arms.

 

If it had worked, it would have been a perfect plan.  All Stan’s extra chores, while not given in the kindest way possible, had done wonders for helping Dipper gain some upper body strength, to say nothing of his endless determination to protect his family giving a fresh boost of energy to his swing, and having the element of surprise on his side.

Unfortunately, while he didn’t have access to all his powers in this form, Bill still had access to the creature he was possessing’s strength and speed.

The demon caught the club before it could make contact with his head, and then lifted Dipper into the air with it until his legs were dangling helplessly, his hands trapped under Bill’s so he couldn’t pull free.  Mabel tried to jump to her brother’s defense, only to be swatted aside and go tumbling across the floor like a ragdoll.

“Last chance, Stanford!”   Bill slowly turned to face him, while unsheathing his claws on his free paw.  “Give me back my meat puppet, or you’re gonna haveta watch me gut Pinetree like a fish!  Your choice!”

It wasn’t even a choice, as far as Ford was concerned.
He was just opening his mouth to agree to his terms-

-when out of nowhere, a silvery-gray blur slammed into Bill’s side and forced him to drop Dipper.

---

It took Ford a moment to recognize what it was: the suit of armor that Stan had wanted Dipper to fix up all by himself, and had ended up cleaning and polishing it with him instead, before setting it up on display next to the counter.  It wasn’t as glorious as it must have been once upon a time, since most of the pieces were still a little rusted in places and didn’t fit together the way they used to, but at the moment it still looked relatively impressive.

He wondered dazedly who had taken the time to put it on, and whether they really thought it would be enough to protect them from Bill.

Whoever it was, they appeared to have overestimated how much weight to put into their attack, since they barely managed to catch themselves on the counter before they could lose their balance and fall on Bill’s recumbent form.

“Whoa,” a familiar gruff voice echoed inside the helmet.   “Been a long time since I was this light on my feet.”

Notes:

Behold, the most unconventional knight in shining armor since Don Quixote.
If you don't know who that is, look up a book by Miguel de Cervantes, or the musical it inspired many centuries later.

Chapter 36: Nobody likes sore losers

Dipper had hit the floor pretty hard, and it took him a dazed moment to realize what had just happened.

As he slowly sat up, the suit of armor that had just saved his life pointed to the cluster of villagers.  “Both of you, figure out how ta get everyone outta here!  Now!”

“S-Soledad?” he stammered, still trying to process that the voice echoing inside the helmet belonged to his…new great uncle?

“I said NOW!”  Sol-Grunkle Stanley, in one swift move, snatched up the club that Dipper had tried and failed to use against Bill, and slammed the butt of it into the demon’s stomach just as he rose to his feet and tried to lunge forward.  “Don’t even think about it, yellow-eyes!”

 

As Dipper pulled himself up, Mabel materialized at his side; to his relief, she seemed unhurt, aside from some bruises and scratches.  Instinctively they grabbed each other’s hands, and rushed to their great uncle’s cage.

“Kids!”  Ford reached through the bars, trying to pull them into as much of a hug as possible.  “That was incredibly brave of you, but please don’t do it ever again or you’re grounded for the rest of your lives!”

“How do we get you out of there?” Dipper asked; he gave one of the bars an experimental tug, which was about as successful as you’d expect.

“I don’t know!  It’s not like any material I’ve ever seen before!”  Ford stared anxiously over the children’s heads at the battle going on behind them.

“We’ll figure something out!”  And Mabel pulled Dipper over to the trinkets Soledad had been planning to sell, looking for anything they might be able to use.

---

***

---

As old and ruthless and vicious as he was, it became rapidly apparent that Bill didn’t have much experience in actual hand-to-hand combat.  He kept making wild swings that Stan, even in his unfamiliar metal body, was able to easily dodge, giving him lots of openings to attack in turn.

Shows how dependent you are on your magic, Ford thought with a kind of grim satisfaction as he watched Stan duck under another swipe and counter it with one of his own.

However, he could soon also see that Stan was at a disadvantage too; he was probably worried about doing permanent damage to his own body, since he was using the club, instead of the sword resting on the suit of armor’s hip, and focusing more on defense than on causing actual damage.  He also had to keep ducking and weaving to avoid Bill’s claws, which Ford suspected would rake through the weak spots in the old metal like tissue paper.

Stan had to be lucky every time if he wanted to win this fight, while Bill only had to be lucky once.  And judging from the vicious smile Bill was wearing, he knew it too.

 

Slowly, ever so slowly, Stan was being forced to lose ground.  He kept getting in the occasional good hit, but Bill showed no signs of slowing down.  In fact, he had started giggling whenever Stan managed to hit him.

He did say once that he thought pain was hilarious.   Ford gave the bars another frustrated shake, and began looking around for anything that might constitute a weak spot.  Maybe at the top of the pyramid…

“Give it up already, Stanley!” Bill cackled, abruptly grabbing the club and breaking the top in half.  “You’re just an empty shell of a man now- literally -and I’m a being of pure energy with no weaknesses-”

“SCREEEEAAAAWWWWWW!!!!”

“Ow!  Hey, what the-OW!  Quit it, ya flying mop!”

 

As has already been established multiple times in this story, the peafowl, while lovely in appearance, tends to utter a noise that sounds like it would fit better in the beak of a dying crow with laryngitis.

It is particularly unpleasant when said bird is shrieking right in your ear, before pecking the top of your head and pulling out chunks of your hair-or in this case, fur.

Ford had never expected Pacifica, of all the creatures that lived here, to be the first one to attack Bill Cipher.  But there she was, swooping down to just above his head and jabbing her beak down in a series of quick strikes, before quickly flapping back out of reach and landing gracefully on one of the flagpoles they’d set up overhead.

Bill barely had a second to recover before a small red blur was dancing around his ankles, eventually morphing into Wendy as she began snapping and biting.

“Ow!  Hey!”   Bill danced unsteadily from one paw to the other in an attempt to avoid the attack, before lifting an arm threateningly, claws bared.  “Knock it off, red, or I’m gonna make ya into a scarf-”

Behind him, the large brown form of Soos, after a very apologetic-sounding bark, lunged forward and clamped his jaws around his wrist, jerking it down just in time for Stan to yell, “HIT THE ROAD, CREEP!” and then land a resounding left hook to his nose.

The impact made the old metal fist immediately bend and crumple inward…but a second later the yellow eyes rolled back, and the demon toppled backwards to the floor, landing with a thud.

The suit of armor followed suit, and then Stanley’s body slowly blinked, before opening its eyes again and groaning.

---

It took Ford a moment to realize that the bars of his cage had faded away; that all the encasing blue light had faded away, in fact, and several tourists were now taking the opportunity to escape the room and most likely flee back to the village.

He barely paid attention to that, though, as he took a hesitant step towards the prone form of his brother.

It was possible that the impact might have ejected Bill…but he couldn’t actually be sure until he saw the whites of his eyes.  Or more specifically, the irises.

As soon as he fell Soos and Wendy had immediately jumped onto the beast, pinning down his arms; even María hopped onto his stomach with a warning hiss, the fur along her back rising to make her look twice her size.

The beast squirmed, and got a warning growl from Wendy in response.

“Relax, knuckleheads, it’s me!”

It certainly sounded like his voice.  Just in case, though, Ford grabbed up the remains of the club from where it lay next to the crumpled armor, and peered over Soos at the beast’s face.

And gave a sigh of relief at the familiar brown eyes staring back at him.

“What’s the word, Sixer?”  The voice was somewhat nasal, probably due to the amount of blood that had spurted from his nose, but it was still Stanley’s.

Ford could suddenly feel dust or something gathering in his eyes, as relief settled in his stomach.

 

“Grunkle Stanley!”

And now here came the kids, staring at their newfound grunkle in open delight as the animals, reassured that their master was back to normal, allowed him to sit up and wipe his face on his sleeve, leaving a long red stain.

“I knew we had a special connection that made us practically family!” Mabel cheered as she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.  “And it turned out to be even better than that: it made us actually family!!!!”

Stan snorted and rolled his eyes, but Ford could see the tender way in which he gathered the girl into the crook of one big arm and gently ruffled her hair.

“Sure you did, pumpkin.  And you can just call me Stan.”  He glanced over at Ford with a dry smile-

-which suddenly faded, replaced by alarm.

A second later Ford understood why, when he heard a soft clinking, clanking noise, and an enraged voice saying, “No!  No, I am NOT gonna be beaten by you again , Stanley PINES!  If I can’t get my meat puppet back, then I am gonna FINISH this for GOOD !”

There was a long, slow, metallic noise, which Ford slowly, far too slowly, recognized as the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath.

Just as he was turning to look over his shoulder, things began to happen in rapid succession.

The suit of armor, looking crumpled and battered but still somewhat functional, lunged forward with its sword clutched in the non-crushed hand.

A large gray paw caught Ford’s shoulder and shoved him to the side, out of danger, while the other one swatted the blade downwards.

The tip of it still made contact, with a loud, squishy sound, with a spot just under Stan’s ribs.

---

Mabel screamed.

It wasn’t like her usual screams; the kind that were done out of excitement, or sheer joy, or because she was having a screaming contest with Pacifica.

It wasn’t even a scream of fear.

Ford had never heard his niece give such an anguished scream before, even as she lunged forward, trying to pull the sword back out.

The demon just twisted it to one side with a demented cackle.

“You have NO IDEA how long I’ve been wanting to do that, Stanley!  To get my revenge on the PATHETIC MORTAL who still thought he could get away with-!”

He never got to finish his sentence.

Ford leaped at him, and with an enraged yell swung the club.  It knocked the helmet clean off, and without a “mouth” on his puppet, Bill’s voice was mercifully silenced.  A second later, the body crumpled again; this time Ford hurriedly scattered the pieces to keep him from using it again, before remembering why he had felt the need to do this in the first place.

 

The children had managed to help Stan lie back down, and pulled the sword from his stomach; Dipper had pulled off his vest and was using it to try and cover the wound, but it was already soaked through with blood.

Mabel was clutching his paw, and slapping anxiously at his cheek every time his eyes appeared to be in danger of shutting.

“Dipper, what do we do?!” she cried, looking at her brother desperately.

He was clearly just as at risk of falling apart as she was, but he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think.  After a moment, he opened them again.

“Soos!” he cried.  “In the library, one of the bottom shelves close to the door has some books that I think are on healing magic!  Go get one!”

Soos whined, looking anxiously down at his master.

“Go!”

The dog gave Stan’s cheek a quick lick, before he rushed off into the still-watching crowd; Ford vaguely registered, as he slumped to his knees beside his brother, that Tate appeared to be going with him.

That was good; Tate was sensible, he’d be able to find a book that could help them, you could always find the answers you needed in books…

“You’re gonna be okay, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel was saying, as she ran her hands through his fur, “you just gotta stay conscious until Tate and Soos get back, and we can do a healing spell or a potion or something that’s gonna make you good as new, and then we can all be a happy family again, okay?”
Even though he could tell she only half believed it herself, Ford didn’t have the heart to contradict her.

Stan’s eyes appeared to be having a hard time focusing on her, and his head was lolling dangerously.

“Hey!  Stop that!”  She smacked his cheek again, a little harder than before.  “You gotta stay awake, cuz we just found out you’re our uncle too, and-” her breath hitched- “and we can’t lose you too, cuz-cuz we all love you and we need you to stay with us!  Right, Dipper?”

“Yeah!”  Dipper pressed harder on the wound, even though his hands were covered in crimson by now, and it showed no signs of stopping.  “I have so many questions you still gotta answer, and-and you gotta help me learn how to toughen up some more, right?  You gotta help me learn how to fight back when the world tries to knock me down!  Come on, Grunkle Stan, you’ve bounced back from worse than this, right?”  His voice chose a terribly inopportune moment to crack, and he bit down on his lip, jaw quivering.

With a visible effort, Stan focused his eyes on Ford, and his lips curled up in a weak smile.

“Heh.”  A tinge of red spurted from his mouth, and he coughed hoarsely.  “Looks like-” it was clearly taking every ounce of strength he had just to talk- “I get…that happy ending…after all.”

His eyes began to close.

---

Up until now, Ford had been in a kind of numb shock as he watched the tragedy taking place before his eyes (which no one else seemed to be doing anything about; did they honestly think this was part of the show?!).

But as he heard Stan’s words, emotion broke through the numbness, in a dark, horrible wave of grief.

No

No, please

I just got you back

I can’t lose you again

Stanley, please

He barely registered that his face was becoming rapidly soaked, or that the children were openly sobbing now as they clung to the beast’s fading body.  All he could feel was the sensation of his heart tearing in half.

This is all my fault

I never even told you I’m sorry, or that I missed you, or-or that I still love you, Stanley

You’re my brother; I never stopped loving you

I’m sorry I didn’t remember you before, and never got a chance to tell you

Through his blurred vision, Ford noticed Stan’s limp gray paw lying just within reach-Mabel must have given up trying to hold it.

He reached out and placed a trembling hand in the middle of the palm.

High six.

Notes:

I thought about naming this chapter, "You're all going to hate me for this," but I worried that would be giving the game away.

...What?!
This is how the story traditionally goes! Stop looking at me like I just did something SHOCKINGLY evil, like kick a puppy!
*Shrinks down into reader-proof bomb shelter*

Chapter 37: Invoking the ancient power

In the nightmare realm, a dainty yet sadistic yellow triangle sat on his throne of ever-changing optical illusions and fumed.

He had lost Stanford-again-and he was beyond annoyed about it.  Years of brainstorming, followed by six months of planning and manipulating, all down the drain-just like that.

And even if he’d at least gotten the satisfaction of finishing off Stanley, it was unlikely that even Pinetree or Shooting Star would be willing to make a deal with him now.

Unless…

He could always tell them there was a way to bring the big hairball back.

…Yeah, that could work.

They’d definitely assume he was lying at first, but he knew how the Pines family thought and felt; as long as there was even a spark of hope that they could save someone they cared about, they would-

His fingers were tingling.

Why were his fingers tingling?  They only did that when he was using his powers-

And then Bill felt his curse starting to unravel.

 

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” he screeched in absolute rage , making the very barriers of the realm tremble.  “I DIDN’T EVEN GIVE SIXER SO MUCH AS A SCRATCH , WHY-!”

“You might as well have.”

It was a voice Bill hadn’t been forced to hear for eons; a deep, echoey voice that sent a chill running down his exoskeleton.

Sure enough, when he looked around, a large, pink form with three frills on either side of his head had manifested beside his throne, tail waving nonchalantly as he sat in a comfy, overstuffed chair, with a cup of tea and a saucer.

“Ugh, what are you doing here?!” the demon demanded.

Instead of answering, the Axolotl said primly, “Your deal regarding the six-fingered one was that you would never do anything to hurt him again.  However, by delivering a fatal wound to his brother, you caused him great emotional pain, which therefore renders the deal null and void.”  He lifted his cup, with one pinky raised, and took a delicate sip.

“What?!  That doesn’t count!”

“Your curse seems to think otherwise.”  For someone without any lips to speak of, the Axolotl looked infuriatingly smug.

“No!  No no no, it-it’s gotta just be a fluke or something, I’m not gonna be beaten by the power of love or something stupid like that-!”

Bill tried to re-manifest in the world he’d been hungering over, or pull the curse back into place, without success.

He didn’t even notice when the still-smiling Axolotl slowly faded away, leaving him to throw a tantrum over his failure alone.

---

***

---

Grunkle Stan had gone very still.

Mabel could barely see through the blur of tears even as she continued patting his cheek in an attempt to wake him up, and as Wendy, who was sitting next to her, let out a small, mournful howl, her little heart felt itself breaking like it had the day she’d been told that her parents and grandfather were dead.

It was both better and worse that she got to see the body this time; better because she actually had a chance to say goodbye…and worse because it was a cruel reminder that there were some things not even the Power of Mabel could fix.

She felt Dipper lay a hand on her shoulder; luckily he didn’t try to pull her away, or say anything.  He just gave it a gentle squeeze, even as she felt him shaking with sobs as much as she was.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mabel saw Grunkle Ford reach out and place his hand against his brother’s paw, whispering something too soft for her to hear.

…And then their hands started glowing.

 

It wasn’t blue, like Bill’s nasty evil magic had been; instead it was a warm mixture of red and gold, which gently curled around Grunkle Stan’s palm, over the tips of his claws, and then began to slowly creep up his arm.

Mabel sat back in shock as it reached Grunkle Stan’s chest; within seconds it had completely spread over his body, until all they could see was a faint outline that after a moment started to…shrink?

Dipper looked at Grunkle Ford in alarm.  “What’s going on?!”

“I-I don’t know!”  He looked just as shocked and confused as they were, which really wasn’t right, Grunkle Ford was supposed to have all the answers now that he had his memories back, right?

After a minute, the glow finally faded a little bit around Grunkle Stan’s paw.  Mabel moved to grab it again-and gave a startled squeak when instead of the soft fur she was expecting, her hand closed around old, kinda leathery skin.

“Holy Moses…” Grunkle Ford whispered, having seen what she was now seeing.

The glow continued to fade away, until it revealed an arm that was much smaller than before, which meant that the suit Grunkle Stan had been wearing was bagging loosely around it, like when she and Dipper used to play dress-up in their parents’ clothes.

It was fading around his legs too, which were a lot skinnier and whiter than she remembered, with kinda gross-looking toenails on the ends of his feet…and then there was his chest and tummy, also swallowed up by his suit, but even with a few bloodstains still standing out against the cloth she could see that the gaping wound Bill had given him wasn’t there anymore…and then the glow was gone, giving her her first clear view of her uncle’s face.

He looked almost exactly like Grunkle Ford, except his chin didn’t have a dimple thingy in it, and his thick gray hair wasn’t as floofy.  Other than that, though, they had the same nose, the same ears, the same kinda big square jaw, the same bushy eyebrows.

Slowly Grunkle Stan’s eyelids twitched, fluttered a couple times, and then opened.

To Mabel’s delight, even after all the changes the dark eyes that slowly met hers were the same ones she knew.

“Wha…” Grunkle Stan gulped, coughed and tried again.  “Wha’ the heck just happened?”

Mabel could no longer contain herself; she flung herself against his chest and began peppering his cheek with loud, mushy kisses.

“You’re alive!  You’re alive and you’re back and your curse is broken so now we can all live happily ever after and-”

“Owowowowow, kid, you’re gonna break my ribs!”

Mabel felt hands grabbing her shoulders and pulling her back.  “Sorry, sorry!”  However, they couldn’t pull back the joyful smile she was wearing as she looked over her grunkle who was no-longer-dead and no-longer-cursed, and even if that meant he didn’t have wonderful fluffy fur or a tail anymore it was totally worth it if it meant he was alive !

 

Slowly, painfully, Grunkle Stan sat up, and stared down at his hand with a confused blink.  He wiggled his fingers a few times, like he was trying to decide if they were really his or not, and then gave it a resounding pinch with the other one.

“Ow.  That felt real.”

“That’s cuz it is real, silly!”  Mabel scooted over and poked his cheek, more gently this time.  “Boop!”

He made a startled grunting noise, and looked down at her with eyes that were turning kinda shiny.  “But…how…?”

“We don’t know quite yet,” Grunkle Ford said softly.  “We’re just happy that it happened.”

Grunkle Stan looked at his brother, and his breath hitched.  “...Sixer?”

Ford scooted over and put a hand on his shoulder; his mouth did that wobbly thing that meant he was holding back feelings.  “It probably has something to do with the fact that you’re our hero, Stanley.”

Then, without any more words, he pulled his brother into a tight hug.

---

Before Mabel could protest the unfairness of Grunkle Ford being allowed to hug him instead of her, she heard a surprised yelp from Wendy.

That glowy stuff was back again, and this time it was wrapped around her; when it pulled away, there sat a skinny teenage girl with long red hair and a green flannel dress.

She stared down at her hands with the same kind of confusion Grunkle Stan had, and made a kind of growling noise that eventually turned into words: “I-I’m-back?”

“WENDY!!!!”

Seconds later Manly Dan had charged through the crowd and scooped her into his arms, before smothering her face with kisses; she let out a whine of protest, but it quickly turned into laughter.

Then the magic stuff encircled where María had been sitting, and when it vanished there was an adorable old woman with thick gray hair, whose skin looked like it would be really nice and soft to touch; before Mabel could act on this theory, up above them there was an alarmed screech, and a blonde girl in a really fancy dress was suddenly dangling from the flagpole and trying not to fall, even as she stared in confusion at her new hands and made more half-squawking sounds.

“Hold on, Paz!”  Grunkle Stan tried to stand up, before Grunkle Ford quickly pushed him down again.

“It’s okay, I’ll get her.”

“I’m not an invalid, I can do it!”

“You almost died, Stanley, you deserve a break to rest and recuperate.”  Grunkle Ford stood up, and caught Pacifica just as she finally lost her grip, before setting her down next to Dipper; Mabel caught the way Dipper’s ears reddened a little as he took in her new appearance, and even in the midst of all the miracles occurring right now found it within herself to be delighted at this new potential matchmaking opportunity.

And then she was distracted by an excited yell from the doorway, and a big man who kind of looked like a giant hairless gopher came running through the crowd on all fours (with a very confused-looking Tate behind him), yelling, “Boss!  Boss!”

He jumped on Grunkle Stan as soon as he reached him, and began trying to lick his face, even as Stan held him back with one arm and yelled, “Soos, gerroff, you’re not a dog anymore-ugh, bleagh, that got in my mouth!”

She looked at Dipper, and neither of them could help bursting into warm, delighted, kind of emotionally exhausted laughter.

Things were going to be just fine.

---

***

---

Behind them, the crowd burst into applause, and someone at the back called, “Wow, do that again!”

Notes:

...There, are you people happy now?

Chapter 38: Tale as old as time (reprise)

Of course, not all of the little group’s problems had been magically solved, even if the curse had finally been broken.

They had to re-learn how to do the simplest tasks, like walking, or eating, or picking things up with their hands instead of their mouths.

Talking was difficult; María (or Abuelita, as Soos called her once he remembered the word, and she was fine with the children addressing her as such) barely spoke at all, and if Soos got excited he would be reduced to barking, or just incoherently yelling one word over and over, which was more or less the same thing.

Wendy and Pacifica fared a little better, since they hadn’t been cursed nearly as long as either of them, but they still struggled with being human again: Wendy gave chase every time she saw a rabbit or a squirrel (and got frustrated that her newfound human legs weren’t nearly as fast as her fox legs had been), and Pacifica was mortified by the amount of times she kept forgetting that she couldn’t fly anymore, or that both her eyes were facing forward instead of on either side of her head.

They had been changed in other ways, too.

Stan, Soos, Wendy and María all still had frighteningly good night vision and sense of smell, and if you took a good look at their teeth you might notice that they were a little longer and sharper than most humans’.  Pacifica’s hair was a far paler blonde than she remembered, and even though she could no longer fly, she was far lighter than most girls her age; Ford suspected her bones were still hollow, like a bird’s.

Even as they slowly improved, there was still definitely a sense of something…not quite human about them.  Not dangerous, exactly, since it mostly manifested in things like Soos sometimes wanting to have his belly rubbed (and having to be reminded over and over not to lick people), or María finding patches of sunshine to doze off in, but still.  It was obvious that some of the villagers were a little unnerved by it.

---

The Pines clan couldn’t care less about other people giving them weird looks, personally.

They were spending far too much time getting to know their lost family member all over again, and reveling in the joy of simply being together.

Ford bribed Stan with bacon to tell him as much of his life story as he could remember, and wrote it all down, along with his, in a new journal that he put together (which ended up having to turn into three journals just to cover all the important things).  Night after night they would end up fast asleep on each other, worn out from rehashing old memories-and apologizing for their mistakes.  Often one of them would wake up to find that Mabel, or Dipper, or often both of them at once, would have snuggled up with them.  When they did, they would just smile and go back to sleep.

They made sure to spend time with the children, too: Ford brought them on trips to the forest to spy on interesting creatures, and Stan taught them how to fish in the lake (and showed off how he could still snatch them out of the water with his bare hands).

Sometimes Fiddleford or Tate would come along with them on their adventures, and they definitely added their memories to Ford’s journals.

 

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you: the Pineses had moved back into the home Ford had shared with McGucket and Tate for the last thirty years.

Stan had spent those thirty years trapped in a ruined castle, and while it had been his home, it had also been his prison, and he wanted out.  Ford agreed that while he had some good memories of when he’d first come there as a young man, Bill had taken away his desire to live there.

Wendy went back home with her father, but came to visit as often as possible (which wasn’t too often at first, since Manly Dan wanted to make up for all the time he’d had to spend without his beloved daughter), while Soos and María had another hut built for them on the property, like the McGuckets.  Not too close to their workshop, though, since they didn’t want to risk it being crushed or exploded by malfunctioning automatons.

Pacifica had thought about sending a message letting Lord Northwest know that she was alive…but ultimately admitted that she hadn’t been happy with them before, and was even less likely to be happy now.  So instead she stayed with the Ramirezes, and worked on getting used to having lips and a nose instead of a beak.

 

One day, though, Stan announced at breakfast that he wanted to start up the tours of the castle again.

Ford’s reaction was…dubious, to put it mildly.

“You what ?!” he demanded, dropping his fork.

“What?  We gotta get a steadier source of income if we wanna take care of everyone.  The way these two are growing, they’re gonna eat us outta house and home soon if we don’t.”  He pointed teasingly at Dipper and Mabel, who looked at each other before both lifting their hands and roaring, like the endlessly hungry little monsters they were.

“Of course, if you don’t like the idea I can just go back ta stealing everything we need…”  He grinned and batted his eyelashes at Ford, who sighed and rolled his eyes.

“If the villagers are amenable to the idea, then I suppose there’s not much I can do to stop you.”

---

***

---

Despite how frightening the first tour had been, the villagers were surprisingly enthused when they learned that the Mystery Castle was going to be back in business, and were more than happy to lend a helping hand in its renovation (which included driving the Killbillies away to find territory somewhere else).

It turned out that a reputation as a town with a creepy, mysterious castle on the outskirts where a terrible curse had once been in effect was surprisingly useful for catching the interest of travelers; they would come to visit, and often needed a place to stay the night and a hot meal, which was good for the Greasy Tavern, and some of them would be interested in buying fresh produce or livestock, which was good for Farmer Sprott, and they’d bring interesting news from the places they’d come from, which was good for Toby and Shandra’s business, and-

Well, you get the idea.  Capitalism may be corrupt, but it also results in people making money.

 

At the beginning of summer the next year, the Mystery Castle was ready, and they only had to drive away the occasional superstitious angry mob that still didn’t understand.

And on the day it officially opened for business, as Ford stood behind the entrance with Stan, waiting for the children to finish their introductory spiel to the tourists so he and Stan could take over, and behind them he heard Tate and Fiddleford putting some finishing touches on their latest creation to make it lean forward more smoothly when it roared, while the rest of their group got into their hiding places in the first room, ready to make the exhibits come to life…he knew that he finally had a place-better, a family-where he fit in.

Notes:

And on that ridiculously schmaltzy note, this story is FINALLY DONE! I DID IT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-
*Awkward cough*
Thank you for reading; I hope it met your expectations.