Chapter Text
The sky hung black, like a torn curtain over a dying play.
The wind moaned through the bones of fallen toy soldiers,
And Grumpy Bear walked alone… again.
His boots sank into bloodied petals, once part of a garden called Cheer’s Hollow, now long withered into a graveyard for the forgotten. Toy windmills turned with creaks, not wind—pushed by the breath of the dead.
Before him, the Red Road sprawled, slick with ichor, strewn with broken names and chipped headstones. Each grave bore the badge of a friend:
“Braveheart Lion — He Roared Until the End”
“Cheer Bear — A Smile That Could Silence Storms”
“Harmony Bear — Music Stilled, Melody Undone”
Grumpy knelt at one stone, fingers rough from stitching his own wounds.
He traced the etching:
“Tenderheart. My Brother in Blades.”
A pause. A breath.
Then the wind shifted.
"He's close," murmured Grimm, the raven-familiar on his shoulder, its voice like rusted bells.
"The one who feeds on the dead. The Grave-Slicker."
Grumpy rose slowly, the bones in his knees cracking like frost-bitten branches. His right eye—the only one left—gleamed faintly beneath his blackened brow, burning with memory.
And vengeance.
Ahead, the mist parted—revealing a tall figure hunched over a fresh mound. The creature was wiry, black-furred and bone-thin, with countless limbs that dug greedily through the earth like a mother seeking lost children.
Its back was lined with Care Bear badges, stitched crudely into its flesh. A collector of souls. A devourer of kindness. One who wore the names of the dead as a cloak.
The Grave-Slicker.
Grumpy drew his blade, an Ōkatana named the Unkindness—from his back.
It screamed softly as it left its sheath, thirsty for sorrow.
The demon froze.
“No.”
The word fell like a mountain. Grumpy’s voice, rarely used, cracked the silence.
“You don’t get to wear their names.”
The Grave-Slicker rose to its full, awful height—eyes like hollow craters, mouth sewn shut with black thread. It hissed between the seams and leapt.
But Grumpy was already moving.
Steel met claw.
Ash met blood.
And the road screamed with memory.
They danced beneath broken clouds, between graves that wept ink. Grumpy’s blade moved not with grace—but with grief. Every slash carried a name. Every step, a burden.
The Grave-Slicker lunged, claws raking his side—tearing old stitches, drawing old pain.
Grumpy fell to a knee, the world blurring.
Then—he saw it.
A small, cracked headstone.
The name etched in lavender:
“Share Bear. Lost, but Not Gone.”
The rage came then—not fire, but frost. A cold silence that swallowed thought.
He rose, slow, terrible.
"You want names?" he growled.
"Then choke on mine."
With one final cry, he carved the sigil of his wrath through the beast’s heart. The blade sang a low note—then fell silent.
The Grave-Slicker twitched. Shuddered.
And collapsed… into dust and broken badges.
Grumpy stood among the graves, his cloak soaked in blood not his own. He did not weep. The tears had long since turned to scars.
Grimm fluttered down and perched once more.
"One less soul-stealer. One step closer."
Grumpy turned down the road, the wind howling behind him like a choir of mourning ghosts.
“I remember every name.”
“And I’ll bring them peace…”
“…even if it kills me.”
And so, he walked on.
Past the graves.
Past the blood.
Into the shadow of The Mawrift.