Dipper sat at his bedroom desk and puzzled over his latest mystery: a small scroll rescued from an ancient library mere seconds before a roaring fire consumed everything. He was trying to figure out its significance, but was having some difficulty. Unlike the riddles of his childhood, the scroll wasn't written in a convenient Latin alphabet, or a simple symbolic substitution cipher. The scroll merely portayed crudely-drawn symbols, some of which had been crossed out.
Scratching his head absentmindedly, Dipper winced as his fingernails drew blood. Recently, his nails had been growing black and metallic, with a tendency to taper to a sharp point. Perhaps it was caused by the cursed graveyard earth he'd dug with his hands while trying to harvest a crop of mandrakes. Perhaps it was the salamander blood in the hand-warming spell he cast in order to preserve his dexterity when catching snow-sprites. Perhaps it was just the unforgeable magic ink he wrote his journals in. Either way, he really needed to cut his fingernails. But mysteries now, hygiene later.
Dipper gnawed on a pen. He'd give his eyeteeth to know what language the scroll was written in, except he'd already traded them in to a wandering tooth fairy in exchange for a sachet of fairy dust. He was almost out of the glittering powder now, which let one levitate and fly, 'as high as the moon', the fairy had said. He'd scoffed at that bit of bragging. Everyone worth their salt knew that the moon was an illusion, nowadays, and had been for quite some time.
The symbols on the scrolls resembled ordinary objects and animals, suggesting a pictographic language where each symbol represented an idea. Some symbols depicted a human figure doing various activities such as fusing with a four-legged animal, raising a leg over a triangle, and presiding over some kind of ritual surrounded by other people. One squiggle was very suggestive of the verb "to walk, slither, crawl" in High Chthonic. The stylistic repetition of motifs such as the human figure suggested a logographic script or even an alphabet for beings with many vocal orifices. He needed to compare the symbols with the roots of all the major languages in order to have a good idea of its origin.
Standing up, Dipper limped towards his bookshelf. His leg had never really been the same after he'd been bitten by a serpent of the underworld. Although Mabel's quick thinking and a squirt-gun full of holy water had prevented his leg from completely melting away, he still had a depression in the limb that twinged annoyingly whenever a crucifix was in his presence.
Dipper misjudged the distance between his face and the bookshelf and hit his head. He hissed in pain and clutched his face. Bill Cipher was right, having only one eye did suck. But, it was worth it. With his one remaining eye, Dipper saw more than his peers did with their two. Their vacant stares at on their phones as if the secrets of the universe were contained within. Their constant nattering about ephemeral human relationships. Knowledge was eternal. Girlfriends were not.
As Dipper ran his finger down the rows of books, the curses on the copy of the Necronomicon he'd liberated from the Miskatonic University Library nipped playfully at his fingers.
"I'll take a look at you soon enough," Dipper said, wiping the blood on his dirty jeans. He paused at the row of three battered journals, trophies of that fateful summer at Gravity Falls. Although he'd already illuminated all the secrets in those books, he kept them around as a memento of his victory over that pesky little triangle. He'd moved on to bigger things, now. True power.
Finally, Dipper found the Dictionarie of ye Magik Tonnges, written by a 16th century linguist, alchemist, botanist, artist, lyricist, and classicist. He was also a plagiarist, and had been torn apart by a demon summoned by a rival polymath whose secrets he had stolen. On the bright side, the book was a thorough and meticulous, albeit inconsistently-spelled, collection of all the extant magical scripts. It held the only known example of the script of Fey, which had to be bound to the page with iron staples lest the letters float away. Dipper had purchased it from the wandering bookstore which appeared next to his school every other Friday the 13th, all for the low, low, price of a year and a day of his lifespan. A bargain, really.
Dipper went back to his desk and brushed away the dry herbs and luminescent crystals to clear a space for his book. With the reference in sight, he pored over the pages, looking for any hint as to what the language could be. Draconic? Not angular enough. Elvish? Not enough gold leafing. It could be a bastardized version of Abyssal, in which case this was probably a mnemonic for an unholy ritual. He needed to cross-reference with some known rituals to see if the actions matched up.
"Dipper, dinner's ready!" his mother called, disrupting Dipper's concentration. Dipper was about to ignore her and continue his work when a painful gurgle in his stomach warned him of the inadvisability of that plan.
"Coming!" Dipper yelled back, a toad leaping from his mouth. Dipper picked up the warty animal and chucked it into a terrarium, where it joined a pile of the creatures. Whenever he raised his voice, the curse of the hedge witch would activate, causing toads to fall from his mouth. He probably shouldn't have stolen that adder stone from her, but hey, sometimes a guy just needs some True Vision.
Dipper shoved the slip of paper into his hoodie pocket, and went downstairs. Mabel was already sitting at the table, utensils held up in anticipation. Mrs. Pines bustled about, setting a plate of steaks on the dining room table before she sat down. The rich smell of red meat made Dipper's mouth water.
"I made one rare, just the way you like it," Mrs. Pines doted. Poor, blind, foolish Mrs. Pines. She looked at her son wearing hoodies, keeping a tuft of hair over his face and speaking in a mumble, and saw only an ordinary teenage boy. She had no idea of the kind of power Dipper was amassing. She wouldn't believe him, even patted his head condescendingly as Dipper told her of his first summer at Gravity Falls. One day, he would show her. One day, he'd show them all.
The temptation of fresh meat was too much. Dipper speared a steak with his fork and tore into it directly, not bothering to cut it with his utensils. The churning in his stomach settled as the larva gestating in his stomach feasted on the protein. On his adventure in the Deep Realms, Dipper had found himself trapped in the tentacular clutches of a lesser shoggoth. Mabel had rescued him, naked and trembling, from the creature's grip, but he had neglected to tell her about the little souvenirs he'd acquired. It was alright, though. The larva were almost old enough to be birthed, and he had big plans for the little buggers. He just had to eat enough food to keep the them from snacking on his internal organs.
"Hey, bro-bro," Mabel said, rosy-cheeked and fresh from band practice, "have you been spending the whole day reading again? I've got to drag you into the sun sometime. You're look like a vampire! And not the sexy kind, either." Dipper's pale complexion was actually anemia. Shocking, how much sacrificing a pint of blood boosted the power of most spells.
"Ehh, I'll just take some vitamins," Dipper mumbled, mouth dripping with grease.
"Pff, nothing beats the natural healing power of The Sun."
"You mean the peeling power," Dipper said, pulling a bit of sunburned skin off of Mabel's nose.
"Hey, I was gonna do that," Mabel pouted. "What's that in your pocket?"
"Oh, it's nothing," Dipper said, tucking the piece of paper deeper into his hoodie pocket.
"Let me see! Is it a love note?" Mabel reached over. Dipper pulled back, a little too far. As the chair tipped precariously, he lost his balance, falling to the floor. Mabel took the opportunity to pounce, wrestling the piece of paper out of his hands. She held up the slip triumphantly, and eagerly scanned the paper. Then she widened her eyes in recognition.
"You found my bucket list! I thought I'd lost it forever."
"What," Dipper said. "But I found it on the floor of the library. You know 'the library'," Dipper whispered, trying not to reveal their adventures to their mother.
"I must have dropped it!" Mabel said cheerfully.
"But why is it all pictures?"
"Because that's the first thing on the list! 'Make a bucket list using only pictures', right here." Mabel pointed to the list with pride. "And there's riding a pony, and climbing Mount Everest, and becoming the president, and-" Mabel continued on. Dipper was a little annoyed over having wasted his time on such a trivial matter, but his face softened into a smile as he watched Mabel prattle.
No matter what he sacrificed, no matter what fell knowledge he gained, no matter what blasphemies he committed in the name of science, Dipper would never stop caring for his sister.
Right?
Author's note
From wikipedia: Creeping normality refers to the way a major change can be accepted as the normal situation if it happens slowly, in unnoticed increments, when it would be regarded as objectionable if it took place in a single step or short period.
I'd set out to write a story about how Dipper nonchalantly accepts the price of knowledge, but I couldn't avoid adding Mabel in as well. They go together like peanut-butter and jelly.
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