A/N I decided to just write whatever chapter length felt right for this, but I would still like to know whether you want long or short chapters- it would help me with figuring out where I should put chapter borders for other projects.
Dipper was trekking through the dense forest, and Azirial had recently decided to become a mockingbird and follow from above. After about an hour of this, Azirial decided to become a cat again and proceeded to trot along Dipper's heels. She was clearly bored; after all, this was the land of the dæmons, the place where she'd lived her whole life- why should this be so much more interesting? Except for the human, everything was the same.
The dæmons boredom was rubbing off on Dipper, but soon they arrived at a decently large lake, about the size of the Dead Sea in Israel, maybe smaller, and much, much less salty. The sand was a nice change of pace, but soon something else caught Dipper's attention- a flash of bright pink.
Looking closer, he saw the tight knit of it, and, feeling it, he found that it was the same material as Mabel's sweater. Looking past the branch it was snagged on, he saw a line of footprints leading off into the distance- some canine, and others human. "Well," Azirial said, "we should probably go looking for them. I would think you would like to see your sister again, and soon, hmm?" Dipper nodded. "OK- they probably stopped a little while ago, since it seems that they were running, and even though Mabel is an endless well of energy when she wants to be, she couldn't have gone that long. C'mon, let's go."
They followed the footprints, and even though they were obscured by things like mud and fallen pine needles at times, the footprints were always there. After a while, though, the footprints ended at a cave. Tired, Dipper and Azirial stumbled in. There was Mabel and Lilyana, laughing at a joke that they didn't hear. When Mabel noticed Dipper, she beamed.
"Hey bro-bro! I'm glad you're back!" She then proceeded to tackle Dipper in an embrace. Azirial jumped away from the twins to greet Lilyana. Dipper fondly returned the hug. "Yeah, it's great to see you too."
Once they separated, Dipper and Mabel sat down and leaned against the wall of the cave. The limited sunlight filtering through the trees into the cave (that was even further obscured by a few vines and bushes near the entrance) was dimming swiftly, and it was clear that they would be staying in the cave for a while.
Dipper and Mabel were leaning on each other and the cave wall, stroking Azirial in Maine Coon form and Lilyana in golden retriever form respectively. Suddenly, Mabel's head snapped up. "Hey, how do we get out of here? As in this world, not the cave," Mabel asked. Before Dipper could answer her, Azirial hissed to Lilyana, "You forgot to tell her?" "No I didn't… oh, wait, I did. Whoops?" Azirial hit his face with his paw; it was so hard that they all heard a dull thwack! sound and Dipper had stop himself from flinching.
Azirial sighed. "Well, not much harm done. But you're explaining; it was your mistake." Lilyana proceeded to explain it to Mabel. "Well, okay, if you want to get from this world to yours, all you have to do is go to sleep. But when you go to sleep there, you come back here." Mabel nodded to show she understood.
"Well, how about we go to sleep now? I'm pretty tired, and I want to be in my own world for a while," Mabel suggested. "Yeah… a nap sounds good right now," Dipper replied. The dæmons settled in their respective humans' laps and soon the group was fast asleep.
Dipper was waking up slowly- as though he was swimming upwards through tar, which slowly changed to maple syrup, then slowly again to water. At first, he was confused; last he remembered, he was curled up in a cave holding a cat. Then more memories started to return, and he thought, Huh. That was a weird dream. Nevertheless, he decided, it was a good dream. Fully waking up, Dipper opened his eyes.
He didn't know what he expected to see. But, then again, he didn't think waking up would be so tiring, nor did he think opening his eyes would be so tiring. Dipper felt as though he had just went through Weirdmaggedon again, but this time with no sleep.
What Dipper saw was the big party room at the Shack- the first thought that popped into his head was, 'how did I get here?' then, 'wasn't the Shack destroyed?', but soon came up with plausible answers. He was probably carried to the Shack by Wendy or Soos or someone like that, and the building was restored by the Zodiac. He realized that he couldn't have been carried by Soos or Wendy- they were part of the Zodiac too, so they must have been just as tired as he was. Dipper decided that it wasn't very important.
Dipper only just realized that his eyes had closed again. Forcing them open once again, Dipper tried to pay more attention to his surroundings. At the same time, Mabel flopped on him from… somewhere, and, with a groan, opened her eyes. "Hey, Dipper," she croaked. Managing to find the energy to sit up and lean on Dipper, she commented, "Man, I really am thirsty. And hungry." Dipper hummed in agreement, wanting to stop leaning on the couch arm with a good bit of his upper half off the arm, get up, and go find nourishment, but not having the energy to.
Looking to his left, he found that past Mabel, their grunkles were leaning on each other on the other end of the couch. As the minutes passed, Dipper felt his energy gathering. Maybe he could go and get something soon. After another half hour, Dipper had the energy to go get something to eat and drink.
"I'm going to go get something to eat. And drink," he announced to Mabel as he started to get up. Mabel followed suit. "I'm going with you. I really need to use the bathroom." As the two schlepped to the kitchen, Dipper said, "I had a weird dream. I also remember it perfectly, which is new."
It was true. Except for nightmares and dreams interfered with by a certain triangular demon, (which were usually nightmares anyway,) Dipper never remembered his dreams a bit. Once Dipper and Mabel reached the kitchen, Mabel asked, "…do you remember what the dream was about? I had a weird dream too."
Once Dipper had gotten some bowls, cereal, milk, spoons, glasses, orange juice, and sugar and set them down, Dipper answered. "Well, I woke up underneath some bushes and a talking cat walked up to me and said that we were in a dream world, and that everyone else was there. So we went to find them, and at some point we got to a lake, and I found a bit of your sweater snagged on a branch. So we followed the footprints, and found you and a dog in a cave, then we went to sleep, and then I woke up."
Mabel looked up from her cereal. "I had the same sort of dream. I woke up near a lake, then a talking dog came and said she was my spirit animal, and then we ran into the woods to find everyone else, but we got tired so we stopped to rest in a cave. At some point you and a cat found us, then we went to sleep and I woke up."
Dipper shook his head. "I would say a coincidence, but they're too similar. So I guess that we're going back when we take a nap." Mabel nodded. After that, they returned to eating. They would talk more about it when they weren't famished and parched.
A/N: Well, that was fun! If I continue like this… then I'll never hit the 100,000 word mark. Oh well. I could increase chapter size, but nah. I might write sequels though. So I'm calling this the Dæmon AU just in case I do. Onto writing the first chapter of another fic, because I just had to write it.