Chapter 26 – Aging Up?

Sixer wasn't sure what all the hustle and bustle was about. Mabel, Maple, Mizar, and Mabelcorn all met frequently as soon as school was let out, excitedly whispering to each other about something.

He never got into hearing range, nor was he able to ask what they were whispering out. Mostly because they broke and changed the subject as soon as he got near. Or, they would offer to brush his tails again and leave him sprawled across the couch for a few hours with immaculate tails.

It was better than blacking out, but they were clearly hiding something from him.

And he was starting to get curious about it.

"Do you know what Maple and the others are planning?" Sixer asked Alex at breakfast one morning. It was just the two of them, since the others had taken off and Maria had yet to make an appearance.

"Depends," Alex replied. "Why do you want to know?"

Sixer frowned a little. "Well, I don't know what they're planning for. Unless they're attempting to plan a way to help at the end of August and want that to be a surprise."

Alex looked surprised. "You…really can't think of any other reason?"

Sixer shook his head. "No? Should I?"

Alex stared at him with a blank expression for a few seconds. "Your birthday is on June 15th, Uncle Sixer. They're planning a birthday party for all of you."

Birthday?

The term was confusing, but familiar. Sixer frowned, trying to figure out what exactly the word meant.

He was almost immediately hit with warm summers, the smell of the sea, and a birthday cake sitting in front of himself and Stanley.

Not to mention items that were gift-wrapped and given to them both.

Oh.

"There we go." Alex must have seen the realization on Sixer's face. "Yeah, the kids are going all-out because last year it was a bit chaotic trying to celebrate. Now that we've had time to get used to each other, it's a bit easier."

"But…I'm getting something in this, too?" Sixer asked in confusion.

"Why not? It's your birthday."

"B-but at the same time it's not.I haven't thought about a birthday in – in—"

"Since Weirdmageddon?"

Sixer shook his head. "Since I fell through the portal in 1982."

Alex stared. "Which is…"

Sixer's tails flicked. "For me…several centuries ago."

It wasn't as big of a time gap in this dimension, but for Sixer? It almost felt like a lifetime ago, nearly forgotten and left to gather dust at the back of his mind.

"Well, then I'm sure that this will be extra special for you." Alex attempted a smile, but likely the fact that Sixer hadn't celebrated his birthday in a reallylong time was hitting him hard. "Especially with my daughter and her counterparts at the helm. They really are excellent party planners, when it comes down to it."

Sixer smiled a little. "I don't doubt it."

"Good. So…how about we keep your mind off the birthday stuff for a little bit longer? I don't think that my niece wants you trying to overhear what it is they're up to."

Keeping his mind off the coming birthday was a little bit more difficult than it might have been, had Sixer not been informed that June 15th was actually an important day for him. He found his mind drifting back to the birthdays he'd had in his almost-forgotten past, when he and Crescent were children and they didn't have to worry about demons or the world falling apart around them.

It made him excited, but at the same time, it made him nervous.

Birthdays were supposed to celebrate how old a person had become, right?

So how old was he, really?

The only answer he had for that lay in his tails, but…that wasn't an exact number. It just told him how many centuries he had lived through. And even then, the number likely wasn't exact to how time used to run in his original dimension. Time was nonexistent there now, wasn't it? At least, in the normal conventions.

Sixer frowned, worried. If anyone asked him how old he was…would he ever be able to have a proper answer?

Time Break

June 15th.

Sixer stood out on the lawn with the rest of his counterparts, and Crescent with his. Mostly, they were milling about, waiting for Mabel, Mabelcorn, Maple, and Mizar to come out with whatever they were working on in Alex's kitchen.

Sixer let his gaze wander around the clearing. From what he had heard, the decorations and party this year were quieter than previous parties Mabel was put in charge of. It was likely that this was because focus was going into preparing for the end of the world as well.

Still, that didn't mean that Mabel couldn't be creative. The four girls had created small models of planets and boats, strung them together, and then hung them between the Shacks in a complicated, crazy spiderweb where the strings crisscrossed and connected with each other in ways that Sixer thought might have been impossible under ordinary circumstances.

They hadn't included Star in their plans, which Sixer had found odd. Not even in Alex's kitchen right at this moment.

"They didn't want you to help?" Sphinx looked at Star with curious surprise.

"I don't know how things work in a kitchen." Star fidgeted a little.

Sixer's ears flicked at her words. Ah. That would probably mean an inability to help.

"I'd go in there and help, but they didn't want me going in there either." Maria, standing next to Sixer folded her arms across her chest and frowned.

Sixer frowned at her, curious. "Why not?"

"Because Mabel found out last week that we didn't celebrate my birthday because I didn't tell anyone when it was and I think she's now combining it with yours this year."

Sixer blinked, looking confused.

"Seriously?" Stanley frowned. "When was it, March?"

"May 28th." Maria shrugged. "The end of the school year was usually accompanied by a birthday celebration for me. It just…stopped, after a while."

May. That was…just last month? And Maria hadn't seen a need to bring it up and let them celebrate her birthday?

Sixer wondered if this was because of all the traveling she had done as a World Jumper, or something else.

"Huh." Stanley frowned. "You really thought you could get away with not telling Mabel what your birthday is."

"It honestly never came up until last week." Maria shrugged. "And Vash happened to be there and mentioned that I didn't see a point in it because of how long I've lived and…that was that."

The looks she got in response to that made her blink in confusion. "What?"

"Kid, you saw everything that happened to us in that cartoon thing," Stan said flatly. "Did you really think that you could live with us for a year and not tell her when your birthday was?"

Maria ducked her head a little at the stares she was getting. "…it was worth a shot."

Stanley snorted. "Not wanting to celebrate it because you don't count the years isn't as bad as other reasons. Let the kid have her fun just this once, all right? Besides." He grinned. "It's not like you've had birthdays with us before ya got here."

While that was true, Sixer wasn't quite used to the idea of a birthday party, even a small one where only family was involved.

And then there was the other matter that had him quietly concerned over himself.

"…I'm not even sure of how old I'm supposed to be."

Maria looked over at Sixer at his words. She frowned. "Do you mean the exact number or something else?"

"…a little of both, I think? I know that the tails of a kitsune dictate its age, but – every time a tail started to split, the process was sped up. I don't know if…if time was slowed or sped up around me just because seeing my tails split quickly was…." Sixer trailed off, uncertain.

After a point, he hadn't really kept track of his age at all.

Maria's gaze hardened. "We'll figure things out. You probably need time to adjust to time again, and then we can figure out your age from there. Besides, since you have six tails, telling people you're about 600 will probably be enough, unless they're incredibly nosy about the exact number."

Sixer was about to respond to that when door to Alex's Shack was suddenly kicked open, and four Mabels – accompanied by Alex and Karen – as they carried out trays of sandwiches and one big platter with a large cake, decorated in dark purple frosting covered in splatters of white that almost resembled the Milky Way.

The sight of the cake was appropriately greeted with oos and aahs from group of Pines gathered in the clearing. The group of artistic teenagers who had put everything together grinned proudly at the positive response.

"All right, everybody! Before we commence with the birthday celebrations, I got a little announcement to make!" Mabel climbed up on a table, standing between sandwich platters. "We almost missed an important birthday! Maria's birthday was on May 28, and she didn't tell us!"

There it was. Sixer watched as everyone turned their focus to Maria, who looked around in response. She tried to keep a straight face, but it looked like she was a little bit nervous.

"So we're gonna celebrate her birthday and our Grunkles' birthdays!" Mabel concluded. "And then I'm gonna figure out when Vash's and Knives' birthdays are so we can do that too!"

"Um…" Vash raised a hand from the back of the group. "We were born in space, technically? So I don't know what date it would have been on Earth."

"Well, pick something!" Mabel replied. "It doesn't matter what the date is, so long as you celebrate it at least once a year!"

"We'll consider it," Knives replied shortly. "Perhaps we should keep our focus on the people who have important milestones today?"

"Right! Let's eat cake!"

"We gotta sing first!" Maple corrected quickly.

Mabel slapped a hand against her forehead. "Right, right! I almost forgot! Ready, girls?"

"Ready!" came the response of three other Mabels speaking at once.

Sing? Sixer looked confused.

Then the four Mabels cleared their throats and started singing.

Happy Birthday to you….

Sixer found himself almost hit in the face with a wave of nostalgia, brought on by these four singing nieces. Yes, their voices were mostly in unison and it made for a strange sound, but that didn't mean that it sounded bad.

After the song, the cake was passed out - dark chocolate and vanilla, mixed together in such a manner that it looked like they were eating the night sky even without the frosting. It tasted delicious.

Sixer quickly finished off his slice and found himself still hungry for a second. The chocolate was something that he felt he needed, and he did not want to be without.

"Grunkle Sixer, wait!" Mabel tugged on his sleeve before he could go for the half of the cake that was left. "How about that?"

She pointed towards a bowl. It was filled with little colorful, bean-shaped things.

It took Sixer a second to recognize them, and when he did, his eyes went wide.

Jellybeans. And a whole bowl of them!

Oh, it had been a long time since he had eaten those.

Sixer proceeded to take two handfuls of the sugary candy and started to eat them slowly. Oh, how he'd missed these.

"We've got presents!" Mabelcorn started making her way through the group, handing out gifts from saddlebags that hung from her sides. They weren't very big things – books on recent scientific discoveries, little drawings and crafts to keep as trinkets.

Mabelcorn trotted over to Sixer and dug around in the pouches for a moment before pulling out a book. She held it out to him. "We didn't wrap them this year, but this one's yours, Grunkle Sixer. Dipper said it might be a good idea if you had it."

Sixer blinked then reached over with a jellybean-free hand and looked the book over curiously.

The front cover had a kitsune and a few other creatures that Sixer didn't recognize interacting together. It looked new and old at the same time, somehow.

"He said you might need to know more about what a kitsune is, if you're taking lessons on stuff from Maria," Mabelcorn explained. "That's a good start, right?"

A gift to help him?

Sixer smiled a little and nodded. "Thank you."

Mabelcorn grinned, then skipped off to the next nearest grunkle.

As soon as she was gone, Sixer turned his attention to the jellybeans.

The bowl was about half-empty, now.

Eh. He might as well finish it off.

Sixer tucked the book under one arm and held the bowl close as he went to eating the rest of the jellybeans. There were other bowls; his counterparts were not rendered bereft of them just by his eating these.

"I see that some things never changed."

Sixer looked over as Maria spoke and motioned to the jellybeans. She looked amused, and was holding two boxes. One of them had a cartoonish duck on the front, the other a terrible special-effects ghost.

Sixer blinked, then swallowed his mouthful of candy goodness. His tails were twitching and flicking while his ears turned in order to track the sounds of his counterparts and Crescent and his counterparts thanking Mabels and Dippers for their thoughtful gifts.

"I…I missed eating them? I think that's the appropriate response?" Sixer looked down at the bowl. "I hadn't realized that I had ever missed them until Mabel showed me this."

Maria smiled, but it wasn't a full smile. "Yeah. I get that too, sometimes." She looked down at the two boxes in her hands. "I was…kinda starting to think that birthdays were useless endeavors, after I stopped keeping close track of my age. But something about today…it's making me rethink that. Just a little."

Sixer smiled a little in response. "It is…nice." His smile faded. "But if we cannot stop what's coming—"

"I know." Maria patted him on the arm with one hand while she made the boxes disappear with her other. "We're preparing all that we can for that, and I think that we're going to be able to beat him back. So, in light of that…." She pulled something out from under her jacket and held it out to Sixer.

It was…

A burgundy red journal. Sixer recognized that color. But the symbol on the cover surprised him.

"You – this is the one you were planning on writing about—"

"I know," Maria replied. "But I think that it'll see more proper use in your hands."

A six-fingered hand with a pinwheel of six fox tails behind it. Looking at the symbol made him feel a small amount of unease, but not much.

Maria was using it to represent something other than what Cipher did.

"Use it to re-record information from your old journals you want to keep, or write new things about the forest, or yourself. I don't care what you do with it – I'm considering this my birthday gift to you." Maria pushed the journal forward a little.

Sixer took the book with his free hand, looking it over with an expression of amazement. "You…you didn't have to do this."

"Probably not. But…I wanted to."

Sixer winced a little at the ache in his chest when Maria said that word. She had been careful to avoid using it too much, but…this time it felt purposeful.

She had meant to say it.

"Thank you."

Maria smiled and patted him on the arm again. "Anytime, Sixer. Let's see if there's anything else sweet around here to munch on. I'm pretty sure that you're nearly out of jelly beans!"