DISCLAIMER: I'm not owning Over the Garden Wall. Just making a oneshot. The picture however is drawn by me, you can find it on deviantArt and tumblr under the username 'lyoth737'.
People feared the night in the lands of the Unknown. Even with the half moon shining down their path, they still huddled in their self-crafted houses and waited for the morning. Their houses gave them security and warmth. It made the feeling of being lost disappear. It protected them from the Beast. The Beast takes only the one that are lost. And as long as they made a new home in the Unknown, they were save from being reaped. There was no going back to the world of the living anyway, they had been too long in the Unknown already. So they tried to protect their houses and lives from the ever growing forest and from being lost.
Only one wayward soul dared to trudge through the forest at night and day - and it was a child as well. At first they thought he was a Pilgrim like his brother, but he stayed way too long to be able to go home. For some reason however he survived the forest and the dangers within, even though he was a mere small boy with a kettle as a hat. He was no longer a stranger to the lands. In fact, he knew the woods better than anyone of the other poor souls that resided there.
The townsfolk murmured about him a lot. Was he just a lucky fellow with a frog companion? Was he a trickster or a deceiver, a demon in disguise? Did he have a contract with the Beast? Regardless, he was one who brought messages and goodies from place to place, someone who always gladly got a meal and a room to sleep when he visited.
He never stayed long.
The kid never aged up. Nobody did in the Unknown. Nobody aged, nobody died. The boy seemed to gain wisdom and a burden much larger than his shoulders though. One time he was the hyperactive boy with an imaginative mind, the next time he was pondering and distracted and seemed to have aged a lot.
And always talking to that lantern of his. Oh, that lantern. With a flame that eerie and a smell of musky oil it gave the townsfolk the creeps. He always insisted on keeping it close and brightly lit and talked to it whenever he could. They called him the Lanternkeeper, as his old name as a Pilgrim didn't seem to fit him anymore.
He was a weird fellow indeed.
The night was dark and silent, only the trees surrounding Greg rustled a bit in the autumn breeze. Greg despised the silence, so he talked and hummed while he wandered the forest. Mostly he was making things up and chatted about random topics that came to his mind – his mind was full of them. From time to time he got a confirmation of one of his listeners in the form of a croak, the other one stayed silent.
At one point Greg felt a sudden burst of heat coming from his right hand. He stopped and brought the black lantern closer to his face. "Huh, what is it?" he asked, happy to have the inhabitant's attention. The flickering yellow flame he diligently fed whenever he feared that they got smaller flickered inside. It seemed to sway unnaturally often to the right. It was more active than usual. Greg knew what this meant. He patted the lantern case with a "I'm on my way!" and trudged into the direction the fire pointed him at.
He dreaded he knew what was going to happen. He got used to the requests by now. Even though he still got mixed feelings about it.
Jason Funderburker croaked his disapproval when two glowing eyes appeared in the darkness ahead of them.
The multicolored eyes regarded both frog and child emotionless, waiting for them to come closer. And there it stood, an Edelwood tree. Greg couldn't exactly make out everything in the light of the lantern, but he knew that it was still a fresh new one.
"Hello, Lanternkeeper. I hope you had a safe travel?" a deep, rich voice greeted him. It wasn't as low as the previous Beast, but far from how it used to be. The Beast showed no emotion in its eyes, but Greg could swear it it tilted its head a bit. He couldn't see any of the Beast's body since it constantly shrouded itself in darkness, but the glowing eyes, the wooden antlers and the pointed hat gave him enough evidence to make out most what it did.
Greg chuckled a little before answering. It was like his brother to worry too much about things. "Of course I did, dum-dum! You were there all the time!" He waved the lantern around.
If the Beast showed any emotions, they were hidden underneath the shadows and its eyes betrayed nothing. "I know." it simply stated.
Greg wanted to say much more and tell about his wondrous adventures, but he knew why the Beast had brought him here tonight. "You did it again, Wirt."
"You're running out of Edelwood oil. You stated it yourself." Still no change of expression on those emotionless glowing eyes while they strayed to the lantern in the boy's hand. "I gave you the lantern in exchange of keeping the lantern lit. In order to fulfill your part of the bargain, you must use the oil of the Edelwood trees. There is no other option."
"There must be! I'm sure of that!"
The frog croaked in approval. "See? Even Jason Funderburker agrees! We just need to keep looking and then we'll find something!"
The Beast shook its antlered head. "And yet you have not found a substitute. You are running out of time again, Greg. You must use the oil of the tree." With that it glided out of the way, making space for Greg to work on the tree. It began to sing a melancholic tune.
The Lanternkeeper sighed and complied. He knew that up to now nobody he asked for help could offer him one, not even the Woodsman. It had taken a long while of convincing to get the Woodsman to help them with anything Beast-related at all. At least they could use his repaired mill for the oil.
Beatrice had been not much of a help either. She had been shocked when Greg told her of the whereabouts of his older brother and even more when the Beast showed up on its own.
But Greg didn't blame Beatrice. After all nobody thought they would wind up like this. But after their fight with the previous Beast and Beatrice' departure to her family, they still didn't find a way back home. They were so sure of it back then. But they didn't. And then the trees began withering away and the forest started to die unnatural. And they still didn't find the way home.
By then they realized that they had been in the Unknown for too long. Or rather, Wirt did. He noticed a lot more things after a while. That their bodies stayed too long under water in the world of the living and died. That the Unknown was a place for neither truly dead nor truly living. And that the Beast was more than a monster trying to lure out poor souls. It was the keeper of the forest and the guardian of the Unknown, the sanctuary for the lost and persistent, for forgotten dreams and wild fantasies, for the ones taken too early and for the ones that still wanted to see more of the world. And the forest was dying because the Beast was gone.
The Unknown needed a Beast. And the Unknown was the new and only home both boys had.
The Unknown needed a Beast. And since Greg was protected by the friendly lady from the sky, it took his brother.
It had been horrible to accept for both of them. It had been hard for Wirt to accept his new body and mind and it had been hard for Greg to accept that his brother was now a soul devouring tree monster. However over time he noticed that despite the drastic change in appearance, different voice and way of talking, it was still Wirt. The way he protected Greg from danger, the way he asked him if he was alright and that Wirt entrusted him his lantern - his soul and literal life fire - to be taken care of.
Branches of the tree fell down. Greg didn't fell the whole tree, it was too much wood to carry for a small kid and he wanted to savior as much oil as he could. While he picked up as many branches as he could, he saw the Beast's long wooden arms scoop up other parts of the wood as far away from the light as possible. It brought a small smile to his face. Wirt often helped him out as good as he could.
At the time he collected enough branches and was ready to move on, the Beast stood up tall again, much taller than his brother used to be, and spoke. "Lanternkeeper." He paused then. "There is one more thing you shall take care of."
If anything, the shadowy creature sounded a bit hesitant, a bit unsure of itself and trying to weight out the best option it had. Greg tried hard to study his brother's hidden face, but before he could ask what he meant, a rustle of leaves and branches washed through the close by forest, followed by a shout. A person stumbled into the clearing, being pushed closer by the nearby tree that had previously concealed their frame.
Greg stood there with wide eyes. It was a kid, somewhat around Wirt's age and looked scared to no end. "This soul here ventured too far into the forest. However they are not hopeless. They are determined to find their way back. I trust you know what to do." The Beast seemed to struggle how to use the right words. But Greg got exactly what he meant. A wide grin spread on his face. It meant a lot to Greg for Wirt to say that.
The boy squealed happily and darted towards the lost child, losing half of the logs he collected in the progress and bouncing around the scared one. "We're gonna get you home! We're gonna get you home! We're gonna get you home!" he repeated as he jumped around. Then he gasped. "Oooooh! You need to tell me about your home first! And your friends! Where do you live? How is it out there? What year are you from? Do you have flying cars already? Oh, I have to show you my new chairasaur! He's almost finished!" Greg shouted out question after question and kept on bubbling, making it impossible for the kid to answer or understand them all.
And before they could do anything, Greg grabbed their arm in exchange for the logs and darted off to the mill, the place he usually stashed his possessions nowadays. The Beast collected the dropped woods silently and followed through the darkness.
It only needed to take one child a time, it told itself. He'd let the other one go, for Greg. He only needed one for now.
Thanks for reading! After over a year I got the sudden inspiration to write a story again, but since I know that it's only a short phase, I reduced the story down to a one-shot. It's better that way.
Now I'll resume drawing Undertale. If you want to come see my stuff, go check out lyoth737 on deviantArt on tumblr, you can find me there.