Chapter 11 – Mabel v Rock Troll

8 November 2012 – Monday

Dipper presses his hands, glowing a dim blue-silver, into an oozing, infected burn on a … well, he isn't certain what species his patient is at the moment. He can barely see past the spiderwebs obscuring his vision to the wound and the magic he casts. Even this – heat to burn out the infection and a boost to the cells to quick start the healing process – pulls on magic he no longer has. It pulls from his blood, from his bones and leaves behind an empty ache.

Exhaustion. He's all too familiar with the sensation. Those three or four high level spells he cast...however many days ago he happened to cast them when getting rid of the Salamanders cost him. But there are a surprising number of creatures living in the canyon and almost all of them have been affected by the Salamanders. Neither twin could stand to see such suffering. Not again. Not after the sands of Kaedekith burned around them for weeks and only had Dipper's waning supply of magic kept them from dying of dehydration. There was nothing they could do then for the multitude of creatures living in those deserts.

The fairies came to them first, chittering about the burrowing ones and the lighted one and the soft ones and the home ones. They spoke of calling an old one for the flames, that the wet one has been losing territory with the long dry, and that the small ones are gathering near the wet one's home.

Mabel went with a few of the glowing specs to find the lighted one and Dipper staggered along the near-molten trail the Salamanders left, digging a family of Kobold – a cousin of Dwarves – out from a collapsed, partially melted mine shaft. The Bluecaps working with them were not so fortunate and only one got out alive. A young Grootslang, native to South Africa and probably brought along in the same fault-shift as the Salamanders, hissed what would probably amount to dire threats if anyone around was able to understand it. Dipper sent them all down towards the creek with a small fairy guide and rather hoped no one chose to eat anyone else. He had just finished checking what he could when Mabel returned with the lighted one and the old one.

The lighted one, a unicorn foal that barely comes up to Mabel's waist, trotted at his sister's side, nosing at her pockets. He was intrigued, for just a moment before the numerous injuries and creates call his attention, in the foal's coloring. It's pale lavender, edging darker towards its hooves, with a sunshine yellow mane. The bit of fluff at the end of it's long, thin tail is bright orange, flickering over the ashy ground like a bit of ember.

The old one, too, captured his attention. A phoenix. A phoenix living – probably – along the coast of California. Dipper doubted it was dragged over in the fault-shift with how old it looks – ruby feathers like dimming coals in a bed of ashes. But still. A phoenix. The bird gave no indication that it wanted to rend them limb from limb. It was certainly big enough to succeed with a beak as large as Dipper's hand and talons the length of his fingers. It stood next to Mabel and the foal, head even with the girl's shoulder, ocher eyes glaring at the decimated surroundings.

One of the fairies pushes a scrap of something edible into his mouth while others still entice him to sip from a makeshift cup. His hands hang limp against his muddy, bloody thighs, but the creature he was working on is no longer there. No longer. There are more. So many more. The untreated around them wail their agony. Further out, those they couldn't find whimper their deaths to a merciless sun.

It should, he supposes, be cold. He thinks it might be November, maybe, and that Novembers are supposed to be full of cold winds and rain. But it's not. Instead, the sun burns heavily on his already peeling shoulders, shirt long since discarded, worked from clothing to bandages. Mabel's too.

Mabel.

Dipper stretches the bond, unable to open his eyes to look after so long – how long he doesn't know, the days and memories blurring together into something incomprehensible after the first few hours of non-stop healing. His sister's there, though. A pale shadow of waning energy and a dim network of glimmering runes. He knows – he thinks, supposes, infers – that she's let him borrow from those energies once or twice. Yet his blood is boiling, the last vestiges of his strength rapidly evaporating with the bright sparks of pain flaring up in his bones.

Mabel's moving around, though. Better than he is, at least. Last he saw, memory blurry, she was stumbling from injured creature to injured animal, wrangling those less wounded to help care for others. The foal, the lighted on, the little unicorn stayed pressed against her side, propping her up and seeking comfort all at once.

Other creatures. Dipper recalls the phoenix, the old one, screeching challenge at the salamanders as it kept the fires at bay. Maybe the heat is just the great bird or the fire or the salamanders circling their camp of wounded, tasty food. Mabel, a fantastic mediator when it comes to getting obscure creatures on different levels of the food chain, cannot get the embodiment of fire coupled with the mind of a carnivorous lizard, to work with others.

As if thinking about them attracted their attention, one of the salamanders screams, high-pitched and pained, while the others roar defiance. There's another scream. The other animals, the creatures, injured or no, fall silent. Dipper wrenches his eyes open, blearily tracing the wall of fire and trees that defines their little camp.

Another scream and there is no more roaring.

Dipper's heart sound too loud in his ears, drowning out the crackle of flames as he tries to listen for any sign of the salamanders. His breath is a heavy, shallow rush of air in and out of overworked lungs.

Nothing.

Mabel heaves herself to her feet. He doesn't catch the motion so much as the bright flare of red. In his mind's eye, she lights up a searing white, only a faint pink streak, like poorly covered paint, to indicate her physical form.

The glyphs. Glyphs and runes and scars all etched into her skin and embedded there with magic, powerful magics, for the sole purpose of keeping her safe, keeping her sane, keeping her with him. She lets him borrow the power off them, sometimes, when he really needs it. He hates doing it.

The runes need recharging, after all. If he's to the point of using power set aside for his sister's continued health, what will she be left with to keep herself safe with? He used it before, now, unwilling to let those around him remain untreated and Mabel would have hit him, probably not, if he left them alone. They only had to deal with the salamanders.

Salamanders.

A phoenix screams at them and they back off, keep to the burning forest.

And here, at the broken edge of their camp, is the creature that killed those salamanders. A twelve foot tall slab of granite and quartz looms over them, over the hush of fear-paralyzed beings. It's broad, too, shoulders at least as wide as Dipper is tall. One of its hands - there are six, of course, because why wouldn't there be? - could curl around his chest and overlap finger and thumb. Or, what he supposes are finger and thumb, as there are only three appendages where fingers would be on the hand-like protrusions.

Dipper blinks slow and exhausted, unable even to summon adrenalin despite being confronted by a fully grown rock troll. The spiderwebs again spindle their way across his vision.

"These are mine, Troll," Mabel growls. Her patterns shift across their bond into something of challenge, resignation, determination. Doubtless, that's what the troll sees as it roars, the sound of thunder and landslides shaking that muddy ashes at the bank of the creek and lifting the loose stuff into a veritable storm. All of Mabel's power compresses into a tight ball at the center of her chest. More the white, it burns, tearing star-bright across Dipper's inner sight without care or compassion, bursting out in a nova of light and sound as Mabel roars back, an avalanche of cold possession.

Already, the drain of the glyphs leeches away at her emotions. What little is left of the Dipper that existed before Gravity Falls thinks that perhaps it's a good thing the Mabel has no magical potential of her own. The Dipper of now, quarter dead and fogged over with pain, crushes the thought almost before it comes to be.

He blinks heavy eyes open just enough to see the troll swing a fist at at his sister and follow it with another that seems too fast for the size it is. She dodges, leaping and twisting her way through the barrage of boulder masquerading at life. She's small and light and lithe beneath the pale, skinny trauma of her body. The power-glow of the glyphs cycles through with her blood, faster and faster, lending more strength to the already terrifying physical prowess. Hairline cracks splinter granite with each strike she makes, her feet leaving divots like bruises where she leaps off its arms or legs.

She is not fast enough to avoid an unexpected backhand that sends her flying into a still burning copse of trees.

Dipper screams.

Dipper screams and reaches out and tries to stand at the same time, but mostly end up falling on his face. He can't move. Knows he's pale and anemic and has probably burned through any fat reservoirs he once had. Knows he's a shade off dying but doesn't care, can't care. He hurts, a bone-deep pain that's more stabbing than aching. Bled completely dry of magic. Any more and he'll probably end up giving himself an aneurysm. He tries though. Pulls until his gums bleed and his eyes burn, sparking blue but never more. Never the brilliant glow Mabel says engulfs him sometimes. His ears start ringing as he manages to gather that spark of power in his palm.

The world collapses black before he can do anything with it.

Mabel's enraged shriek can be heard clear down the valley as she surges from the ashes and flames. DipperDipperDipper her mind chants, but the troll is between her and him, taking advantage of her momentary absence to advance on the injured creatures. Her charges.

Her brother.

It's standing between her and her brother.

She drains the glyphs, pulling and pulling and pulling until there is nothing left for them to give and still she demands more even as she charges headfirst the hulk of stone given life. At the last second she duck under an incoming hand, pivots, and slams both feet into the thing's knee with a burst of power. Stone against her unbreakable will, it shatters. She lets momentum skid her under the toppling beast, toes and fingers digging into powder then dirt as she turns just enough to leap, an impact of fury and pain on animal instinct.

The troll crumbles around her. Mabel hits the ground hard amids and gravel and falling chunks of rock, dead to the world.