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It was supposed to be a quick hike, just to a rainforest hidden in the woods. He and Ford stumbled across it when they went to try and find some weird hippo looking creature hiding farther up the mountain near some cliffs called Horn Goliaths.
On the way up Stan and Ford started playfully arguing, much do Fiddlefords chagrin. During some horseplay that Fiddleford told them not to do, Stan fell off the path. He could hear both of the Fords™ cry out in panic as he ragdolled down. He tumbled down a small hill, landing face down in a small clearing of grass. For a moment, Stan’s ears were ringing so bad he couldn't hear anything but white noise.
As sound started to filter back in, the noise of rocks rolling down and panicked calls of his name floated down to his ears from where he was laying, trying to gather himself enough to get up again. Flopping his head to the side, Stan could see a black ring. It was covered in large splotches of white and small specks of different colors sprinkled throughout. It reminded Stan of those pictures in Ford’s astronomy books about nebulas.
Stan furrowed his brows in confusion, staring at the ring as he slowly pushed himself up. It was surrounded by a circle of small blue flowers, each of them speckled with different colors to match the ring. It was weird and unsettling, even for Gravity Falls.
“Oh my god, Stanley! Are you alright?” Ford exclaimed as he came running to Stan’s side. Gripping his shoulder and hauling him up to start checking him over for injuries.
Ford was manhandling Stan's roughed up body, twisting and pushing him as he saw fit. Stan tried to struggle for a moment before realizing it was futile. When Ford set his mind on something it was almost impossible to stop him. Instead Stan was stuck looking like a disgruntled kitten being groomed by its mother. A frown prominently displayed on his face.
“I told y'all not ta rough house!” Came Fiddleford’s angry voice right behind Ford. His arms crossed and brows furrowed, he looked annoyed but also concerned. His eyes worried and his stance tense. He stood right above them, watching as Ford manhandled Stan around.
Once Ford deemed Stan uninjured enough, he grabbed Stan by the face with both hands and leaned in close. He was almost nose to nose with him before removing one hand and whipping out a pen light to flashbang his eyes.
“Gah,” Stan yelped, “Ford what the fuck!”
Stan could hear Fiddleford laughing at his misery, gravel crunching as he took a step back from how hard he was mocking his struggles. Ford hummed before letting Stan go and leaning back, “I had to make sure you didn’t have a concussion.”
Stan used both hands to rub at his eyes, cursing his twin out the whole time. Blinking the stars out of his eyes, Stan glanced to where Fiddleford was standing above them. Instead of looking at them, he was looking next to Stan at the flower circle.
“Woah,” Ford gasped out from Stan’s side, “Look at that.”
Fiddleford took a step towards the flower ring, eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Hey, maybe we shouldn’t get near the crazy flower circle.” Stan called out as he grabbed onto Fiddleford’s leg from where he was still kneeling on the ground.
Ford almost bolted up from where he was kneeling with Stan to go towards the flower circled ring. Almost shaking in excitement at the discovery within their grasps.
“Ford, wait. Isn’t this really weird? We have been here lots of times and all the sudden there is some galaxy lookin ring surrounded by matching flowers.” Stan tried to reason, something that should never happen with the company he’s been keeping.
“Relax Stanley, it’s a ring.” Ford rolled his eyes as he turned to look at Stan, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrow.
“A ring inside a bunch of flowers surrounding it.”
“Yeah, flowers. Not mushrooms or anything.” Fiddleford happily answered back, holding the ring up to the sky.
“Guys, there is no way this goes well for us.” Stan stated dryly, crossing his arms and leaning back a little.
They were ignoring every warning that Stan tried to explain to them. It wasn’t even that crazy of an idea. A bunch of flowers surrounding a random gemstone ring in the middle of a surprise meadow in the forest.
“Stop being a worry wart Stan, this is one of the safest ways we have ever collected an anomaly!” Ford exclaimed from where he was standing, already studying the ring.
They couldn’t be dumber than Stan , but here they all are. Stan being the voice of reason in this situation is crazy, everything about this is crazy.
“And that doesn’t strike you as weird?” Stan raised an eyebrow, staring at them with a bewildered stance.
How dumb can two geniuses be? Just last week they were running from that snake anomaly that almost killed them, forced to jump off a cliff to escape. Only surviving because of some crazy invention that Fiddleford made years ago. Now these two dumbasses are grabbing some random ass ring that is probably cursed.
Stan wanted to leave the obviously cursed ring in the spooky ring of flowers, but of course the nerd patrol wanted to grab it. The normally cautious Fiddleford put his hand straight into the circle to grab the ring with a smile on his face, seemingly happy to find such a ‘safe’ anomaly.
When nothing immediately happened, Stan started to untense. He didn’t even realise how locked up he had become until right then.
“See Stanley, nothing bad happened!” Ford exclaimed, a bright smile across his face. He already had his journal out and was drawing the flowers around them and the ring that Fiddleford was holding up to the sun peeking through the treetops.
“I can not believe you just said that. Outloud and everything.”
Fiddleford chuckled as he shook his head, “He’s got ya there Ford, can’t go around askin for trouble like that.”
Ford scoffed at their twin mockery, rolling his eyes and not giving them a response. He just continued writing in his nerd journal about this probably cursed ring. This was probably going to cause problems for them in the future, but for right now maybe the Fords™ were right.