Reunion and Ruminations
Ford and Maegella stared at each other for nearly a minute. Stan, Soos, Wendy, and Manly Dan stared at them and then looked at each other.
Ford raised a six-fingered hand and rubbed the back of his neck as the expression of shock was replaced with wonder. "You're here I—I can't believe it!" he cried in surprise.
Maegella gave him a half-smile. "You've made it to your own world, Stanford," she said in a shaky voice. "I thought—you just disappeared the last time we…"
Ford interrupted her, "I didn't mean to leave without saying goodbye properly! I mean I got sucked in before I could—"
Stan interrupted them: "You know each other?"
Ford and Maegella both gave a start, then looked around them, realizing that they had an audience.
"Y-yes," Ford replied as Maegella nodded. He cleared his throat and continued, "We've met before. Maegella is from the land of Rothezar. She—she helped me when I, uh, visited her dimension some twenty years or so ago." He turned to look at his brother, "Stanley, this is Maegella! Maegella, this is my twin brother, Stanley!"
Maegella looked at Stan and raised her staff, "Greetings, Stanley."
Stan clicked his tongue and gave her a wink, "Hey there!"
Then he turned to Ford and asked in a loud stage whisper, "She's not going to turn you into a game piece for another nerd game, is she?"
Ford rolled his eyes. "No, she's not! She's not from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons…"
Stan's response and Ford's reply to him confused Maegella enough that she forgot to put down her staff. Wendy reached out to push her arm down before saying, "I'll go say goodbye to Dad for now, so hold your story-telling until I get back."
XXXXX
An hour later, after they bid Manly Dan goodbye, the two Stans helped their three new passengers deposit their things in the second level, packed away the groceries, and sailed out of the Port. Stan took the helm and cruised away from Chetco Cove and headed south for California.
They were all at the bridge. The next thirty minutes were spent explaining what Maegella was looking for in Dimension 46'\, which included a summary of the history of Mek-Death and the rebellion that took the Sigil out of that dimension. As Maegella showed them the hologram of the Guardian, Ford leaned in and asked, "Maegella, can you show us a closer rendering of the Sigils on the chest?
Maegella complied, reaching out to touch the chest of the hologram guardian where the combined Sigils were located. This created a zoom in effect to show the Sigils in closer detail. The red Sigils were arranged in a circle on the chest of the guardian, each enclosed in a white diamond-shaped background.
"I don't know what I was expecting," said Stan, peering over Ford's shoulder from his position at the helm. "Looks like a bunch of squiggles to me."
"Each Sigil meant something to the kingdom they once came from," Maegella explained in a soft tone. "They were inspired from the constellations in our night sky."
Wendy peered at the symbols. "Hey, this one here looks like the birthmark on Dipper's forehead," she exclaimed, pointing at the Sigil on the top of the circle, "except it's not lying down."
Soos gave a start and looked at Wendy. "Dipper has a Big Dipper on his forehead? And he didn't tell me?!" he said out loud.
Wendy cringed. "Oops."
"Dipper also showed it to me before the—uh—event happened," said Ford, studying the set of constellations closely. "Seems like the Big Dipper is the only constellation we have in common, though that's not the name it goes by in Rothezar, if I'm not mistaken."
"In Rothezar, we call it the Pendulum," Maegella confirmed. "It was the Sigil of the kingdom whose Leader was swayed by the Cipher's false promises all those years ago."
Ford cringed at the mention of "Cipher". Maegella saw his expression and winced. "I'm sorry, Stanford, I—"
"It's okay, Maegella," Ford murmured, looking at her with a kinder expression. "He's gone now. Defeated. Never coming back!"
"I have heard from Soos and Wendy that you have defeated him at great cost," said Maegella, who looked over at Stan. Stan seemed extra-concentrated on the large window in front of him. "Many worlds are in your debt, Stanley Pines."
Stan huffed. "You're welcome, I guess."
Ford grinned. "He's just embarrassed by the praise," he explained to Maegella.
Maegella looked back at Ford and smiled. Then she just stared at him, then looked at Stanley, then looked back at him again. Ford's grin of humor changed to an awkward one. "Uh, is something wrong?"
"I saw his portrait back at the—Mystery Shack, you called it?" she began, referring to Stan. "I was very surprised; he resembles you so much, yet there are differences."
Wendy raised her eyebrows. "I thought you were just surprised there was a portrait of a strange old guy where Soos and Melody live," she said, looking at Maegella.
"And a very good-looking strange old guy, too!" Stan declared, looking back at Maegella and waggling his bushy eyebrows at her. "My portrait gives that dingy office life!"
When he turned to look back at the sea, Soos and Wendy sniggered behind their hands. Ford rolled his eyes. Maegella was unable to suppress a grin.
"And you look older than your twin," Maegella added.
Wendy couldn't help it; she snorted out laughing. Soos clapped a hand to his mouth in shock. Ford suddenly found that he needed to give the ceiling a small, amused smile while Stan hunched over the ship's wheel and muttered something that sounded like, "Where are the extra controls on this ship?"
Maegella blinked. "I'm sorry," she said, looking sheepishly at Stan. "I do not mean rudeness! I was making observation and not a slight on your appearance…"
"Eh, it's fine," Stan murmured, waving it off. "All the kids do it these days."
"…in light of the fact that your brother bathed in the Healing Springs a long time ago, which would explain why he looks younger than you." Maegella finished in a softer voice.
"Healing Springs?" repeated Stan, turning to look at Maegella and Ford. "Healing Springs? Ford, did you take a side trip to a spa or something?"
Ford rubbed the back of his neck, looking awkward again. Maegella waved her hand over the orb, making the image of the Sigils disappear, and stared at Ford. Wendy and Soos stared at Ford as well.
"I take it they do not know of your travels outside your dimension," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Just bits and pieces with Stan," Ford admitted, pointing a thumb at Stan. "There are parts I'm not comfortable sharing yet…"
"Can you just share the part about how you two met?" Soos asked in a polite voice. He was hunched over the small table staring at Ford, looking ever more like a curious gopher/man-child hybrid.
The implication of the innocent question made Ford cough and Maegella turn a little pink in the cheeks. Wendy raised an eyebrow at them. Stan was looking at his brother as though he caught Ford in a compromising position (and with him knowing his socially awkward brother, it was a long time coming).
Ford and Maegella looked at each other. Then Ford looked at everyone in the room.
It was Ford who began talking: "What I am comfortable sharing is this: while I was on the other side of the Portal, I discovered that I could jump between dimensions by finding a weak spot. If I time it correctly, I can pass through it and jump to another dimension. That was how I got by for thirty years: dimension-hopping, meeting new people, collecting parts for a device that would help me defeat Bill Cipher, that sort of thing. It just so happened that prior to arriving in Rothezar I—uh—miscalculated with some local wildlife in Dimension 51…"
Ford looked up and saw Stan looking at him with a frozen expression on his face. "What do you mean, miscalculated?" he asked his twin in a tight voice.
"Y-yes," Ford replied. "In my quest for the next dimensional weak spot, I had encountered a mother with her young. Looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a porcupine, with razor-sharp claws and teeth. I had startled her and she charged…I barely got away, but she was trying to protect her young at all costs. It was very fortunate that in trying to escape her, I managed to encounter the weak spot I was looking for and managed to land in the best possible dimension to be! Very fortuitous!"
Judging by the look of slack-jawed horror on Stan's face (and Soos and Wendy's combined look of shock), it did not seem fortuitous at all. Or Stan was simply not aware of what the word meant.
"If I were you, I would reconsider listing the extent of your injuries, Stanford," Maegella murmured, looking at Stan with concern.
"You…you got hurt!" Stan yelled. "You almost died!"
"I survived!" Ford yelped back. "I got into the weak spot in the dimension and landed in Rothezar! Maegella found me right away and took me to the Blue Guild for healing. It all worked out!"
Stan turned away from his brother, looking at the sea he wasn't really seeing. "But you got hurt…you wouldn't have gotten hurt if I hadn't…the Portal…"
Ford stood up and walked over to the ship's wheel. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and gently said, "Stanley, we've talked about this. In the first place, I should never have built that Portal, so part of the blame lies with me. I forgave you for pushing me into the Portal. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been able to come home and gotten to know the rest of my family. If it weren't for you, there wouldn't have been any way to defeat Bill Cipher for good."
Stan looked away from the windows to look at Ford. He still looked horrified and guilty.
Ford smiled at him. "You're our hero, Stanley. Never forget that."
"And that's the truth!" exclaimed Soos.
"He's right, man," Wendy piped up.
Stan turned to look at them: his former employees were smiling at him.
"Here, you sit down and I'll drive," said Ford, gently pulling Stan away from the wheel and taking over. Stan trudged over to the table and sat across from Maegella.
He stared at his hands, composing himself. When he felt ready, he looked at Maegella and said, "We've got time until we reach California. So, how did you meet my brother over here?"
Maegella looked evenly at Stan, then at everyone else in the room. She began, "I found him all those years ago, along the banks of the river. I thought he might not make it to the Springs in time…"
XXXXX
Author's note: This chapter is quite short, but this is to give way to some flashbacks in the next chapter.
