The blizzard subsided by daybreak—the red moon had also sunk beneath the horizon, as well.

Shaggy was relieved to try on the winter gear that the waystation owner had thrown in with their stay; the tunic and snowpants weren't heavy, but they were incredibly warm and fit perfectly over his t-shirt and jeans. And an odd-looking headpiece that resembled feathery earmuffs covered his ears comfortably, and, based on Scooby's giggles, he clearly looked amusing in it.

"Laugh it up all you want, Scoob; this boy won't be freezing up on that mountain, that's for sure," Shaggy insisted. He sighed, glancing at his canine companion. "I wish we had a set of this winter gear for you and Scrappy."

"Rhe've got fur," Scooby boasted.

"You say that now, Buddy, but, like, we haven't even started our climb yet," Shaggy said, putting on the matching gloves.

Scooby harrumphed and followed Shaggy outside, where the others were waiting. Daphne and Flim-Flam were also wearing their sets of winter gear over their clothes, feathery earmuff headpieces and all; Vincent was wearing the tunic and snowpants over his tuxedo, but he had outright refused to wear the headpiece, instead opting to fasten his cape over the winter gear and turning up the cape's high collar to protect his ears that way.

"You and your aesthetics, Vince…" Flim-Flam teased. "…Though I think you have a point—I don't think these earmuffs are my style, either."

"Perhaps not, but this is most definitely a case of 'Do as I say, not as I do.' You'll keep your earmuffs on," Vincent instructed.

"Aww…"

"Where's Rhrappy?" Scooby asked, looking around for his nephew.

"Right here, Uncle Scooby!" Scrappy said, briefly poking his nose from beneath the collar of Flim-Flam's tunic. "And right here is where I'm staying—it's gonna be even colder on that mountaintop, and none of that winter stuff will fit me!"

"That's probably the best thing we can do for him," Daphne sighed. "Scooby, will you be alright?"

"Rheah, peachy!" Scooby assured her.

Vincent wasn't so sure; granted, Scooby had more fur than Scrappy and could probably handle the cold better than his nephew, but the winds around that particular peak rivaled those in Tibet, and despite having lived in the castle for several months, none of these youngsters, aside from Flim-Flam, had ever wandered in that kind of weather before.

With a sigh, Vincent now unfastened his cape and placed it around Scooby.

"It's rho warm!" Scooby exclaimed in surprised.

"Well, it ought to be—it's enchanted," Vincent returned. "It adjusts with the location and the weather to ensure optimum comfort to the wearer."

"Rhwow! …Rhut what about rhou?" Scooby asked, as Vincent also placed the feathered earmuffs from his winter gear set to cover Scooby's ears.

But Vincent gave the Great Dane a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry about me, Scooby; I'll be fine," he said, and he then turned to face the mountain—and the damaged peak where his life had changed forever. "The climb won't be an easy one—and there's no telling what will be waiting for us on the way there, but I can't use my magic without attracting our enemy's attention."

"We've got this," Daphne replied. "You just lead the way."

Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and Flim-Flam nodded in agreement, and Vincent once again faced the mountain trail.

"Then, follow me."

They climbed the trail up the mountain, not a single one of them complaining about either the cold or the strenuous climb. Vincent continued to lead the way, though he frequently looked back to check on them, insisting on rests at the various checkpoint cabins that dotted the trail, most of these were abandoned, but still welcome shelters to escape from the cold and the weariness for a little while, at least.

The entire day had gone by like this, and though they had feared the red moon rising again that night, the sky was dark and moonless—and a dazzling aurora was visible in the sky above the peak.

"Like, wow, you don't see this in Tibet," Shaggy commented.

"That's 'cause we're not north enough," Flim-Flam said. "But you know what, aside from the aurora, the clear mountain night really takes me back!"

"…Flim-Flam, you're nine years old," Daphne said. "Just how far back can you even go?"

"Hey, having fewer memories means I can remember 'em better," the boy grinned. "But yeah, it was on a clear and cold night like this, three years ago, when I dropped in on old Vince for the first time."

Vincent glance back over his shoulder at the others.

"Call it a moment of weakness that I let him in," he intoned.

"He means mercy," Flim-Flam said, sobering slightly. "I… kinda underestimated how cold it would be—I'd probably have frozen up there if Vince hadn't intervened. But hey, I was six—what did you want from me?"

"But why would you even have been climbing those mountains when you were that young anyway?" Scrappy asked, briefly poking his nose out of the tunic again.

"Because I didn't want to go back to the orphanage," Flim-Flam stated. "I'd been on the run from them for a year—they wanted me to be someone I wasn't. 'Just be like all the other children—you'll be adopted in no time at all.' …Maybe I would've been. But I wouldn't have been happy."

"…You know, I understand that," Daphne said.

"You do?" Flim-Flam asked.

"Yeah. My father is a soap magnate—both he and my mother expected me to join the business when I turned 18, but I wanted to be an investigative reporter instead. There were a lot of discussions about it, believe me, but, in the end, I think they realized that I wouldn't have been happy with that kind of career."

Shaggy sighed; he'd remembered that period of time all too well—shortly after they'd broken up the gang after Velma joined NASA and Fred had left on his own to start his freelance writing career, Daphne's parents had called her home, leaving Shaggy with Scooby and Scrappy to adventure on their own. Shaggy remembered the frustrated phone calls he'd received from Daphne during that time about her worries that her parents would never understand her true ambition—until Daphne had finally called him up, excited to announce that her parents had finally accepted her decision. She'd taken it solo at first while Shaggy and the dogs still did odd jobs for his uncle until she'd finally offered for them to form an investigation team. And that had led to this.

"Then you don't blame me for running?" Flim-Flam asked.

"Well… there's a difference between me standing up to my parents at 18 and you running away from the orphanage at 5," Daphne reminded him. "But, as I said, I can understand why you did."

"Yeah…" Flim-Flam sighed.

"But, like, what got you going up to Vincent's mountain?" Shaggy asked.

"Well, I ended up at one of the monasteries up in the mountains—naturally, we all quickly realized I wasn't a good fit there, either, but they still provided me with food and shelter since I was clearly in need of it. But I'd noticed that in the village nearby, people kept talking about one of the mountains, and not one of the famous big ones, either. Somewhere, they said, hidden among all the big peaks was a smaller one with a castle at the top—and in that castle was supposed to have been a powerful sorcerer who'd been there for the last three hundred years. They were calling it Jadhugar Peak—jadhugar is the Nepali word for 'magician.' I asked the monks what they knew about Jadhugar Peak, and though most of them didn't know too much, a few of them said that no one ever dared to go there on account of the sorcerer supposedly being the most powerful one ever known. One of the monks said that he still sensed a great power on that mountain, and that was enough for everyone to stay away—except me, that is. I knew I had to check this story out."

"Rhy would rhou go after hearing rhat?" Scooby asked.

"Hey, you know what they say—'go big, or go home.' And I had no home to go to," Flim-Flam replied, with a shrug. "I thought that, maybe, if I could work a little of my smooth-talking on this sorcerer, he could cast some sort of spell on the social workers to leave me alone so I could run around the village all I wanted. …I didn't account for the possibility of a blizzard complicating things, though. I don't even know how, but, somehow, I made it to the door of the castle."

"Starved and hypothermic," Vincent said, glancing back again. "I will never know what you were thinking, trying something like that."

"I told you, I was six—I wasn't thinking," Flim-Flam shrugged.

"Hmm, that was obvious…"

"But, you took him in," Daphne said. "After three hundred years locked up in that castle, you finally opened up."

Vincent glanced at her now; they hadn't told Flim-Flam or Scrappy why he had locked himself away—they were still too young to learn about his attempted execution by the witch hunters. But it was true—Vincent had intended to continue avoiding mortals after that, and yet…

"As I said, it was a moment of weakness," he said.

"He felt sorry for me, the big softy," Flim-Flam added.

"…I will not dignify that with a response."

"I think you just did, Mr. Van Ghoul," Scrappy chuckled, peeking out of the tunic once more.

"Rheah, I think so, too," Scooby grinned.

"…You're free to think what you want," Vincent said, after a moment.

"Well, softy or not, Mr. V, I know one thing is true—we're lucky to have you with us," Shaggy said.

Scooby's grin faded slightly, realizing that Shaggy was thinking about everything Vincent had told them in that conversation about the witch hunters—and whatever it was that had happened in that village with the other warlock.

Vincent seemed to have realized it, as well.

"…Likewise," he said, after a moment.

He continued to lead the way up the mountain, pondering on how his reputation for going soft seemed to have reached new heights. It was one thing when his companions brought it up—for them, it was reassuring. But their enemy had also scoffed at him for being soft, as had the shadow witch.

Vincent glanced back behind him once more, surprised to see that the others had closed the gaps between them and were walking together, close behind him, ready to come to his assistance if need be.

There were worse things he could be than soft, he realized. And if these were the repercussions of being soft, well… He'd accept them—gladly.

Notes: I'm a stickler for details and actually spent a few hours trying to find which mountain in the Himalayas Vincent lives on. I narrowed it down to the Mahalangur Himal region on the Nepal-Tibetan border. It can't be one of the really tall peaks, as the gang and the deliveryman from Rankor's episode can reach it and stay there without the need for supplemental oxygen, and 16,000 feet (5km) is around the cutoff point for that… but I couldn't find any names for peaks that low, so I made up one of my own. Jadhugar is, indeed, the Nepali and Hindi word for "magician," so it made sense that the local villagers, having grown up hearing rumors of Vincent and his castle, would name the mountain after that.