Illusion is Reality

Chapter 116

-Light something on fire-

Miz hugged her legs up against her chest as she sighed. Oh course she had to mess up again. Upsetting that Stanford again, like she always did. But she kinda wanted to point out how his plan sounded, at least to her- see if he would be able to explain it any better without judging her human family for not physically fighting back against their government. She'd been rather irked at his insistence for them to go out into the front lines for it. These weren't space traveling people like him. Sixer and Stan were, but they just wanted to put that behind them- they wanted to move on with their lives! (Well, Fordsie liked the idea of space traveling, deep down, but that wasn't the point here.) Miz huffed, but of course, antagonizing him wasn't nice. Even though he upset her all the time. Miz huffed. Whatever, she got what she wanted, she got the people teleported to safety. And she'd go about checking up on them, make sure their crops were growing, they could replant once the crops there produced seeds. These weren't commercially bred vegetables that had their seeds and reproductive cycles bred out. Miz had even 'stolen' a few natural pollinators. Not honey bees, those required special care, she'd grabbed some wild bees and flies and other insects. Earthworms for the soil, springtails, beetles… an island needed an ecosystem so she'd grabbed insects. Bacteria were needed to break down material for everything else so she'd grabbed real soil samples from various locations and copied them many times over to build the island. She'd seeded the forest area with edible, non-poisonous mushrooms. The trees and grass and moss were all non-toxic as well. She hadn't bothered with fruit trees yet, because she was planning to get those at a later date.

The island itself was placed in an area away from the borders of tectonic plates, too dangerous. But the 'safe' locations had pretty deep water, so she'd had to build up from the ocean floor, in order to stabilize it. She could have filled it in with solid rock and sand, but she didn't want to put such a large mass in the middle of the open ocean, where fish were trying to swim through. So a layered, tiered mass of rocky undersea mountains were built up, with plenty of spaces between for fish to continue swimming through. Then she built up supports so she could build the island on top. She made sure everything was stable, and wouldn't erode away and crumble (well, not for a few thousand years at least). She was planning to introduce more animals to the island eventually. She thought she did a good job, all things considered. But she didn't know if she'd covered all the bases. Probably should have looked up more information about this- but she'd based a lot of this off her Farm Planets and their set up.

Her musing was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Miz?" Her mommy's voice called out carefully. Miz sighed. "Yeah?" The door opened and Wanda came in with a plate of food. "Hey, you didn't finish breakfast." She said, sounding a little… guilty, for some reason.

Miz shrugged, shuffling back on the bed as Wanda walked over and placed the plate down. "...you know I'm not…" Wanda sighed, awkwardly rubbing her arm. "I'm proud of you, for helping the children-"

"Don't need you to be, I did it for myself." Miz grumbled, reaching for the plate of food. Wanda paused, unsure how to proceed. "...are you mad at me?" Wanda asked. Miz quickly shook her head. "Not at you." Miz assured her, "At myself. For messing up, again."

"...you didn't-"

"Yes I did. I pissed off that Stanford again. I always do!" Miz shoved an omelette into her mouth. "...don't like him." She pouted. Wanda nodded, "I… guess… um…" Wanda waved at the bed, "May I sit down?" She waited for Miz's nod before she sat down beside her daughter and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "You two can't get along?" Miz shook her head. "He doesn't want to get along." Wanda wasn't really sure how to respond to that. "Would you prefer if I asked him to leave the room next time?"

That only confused Miz. Why would they ask that Stanford to leave? She was the one who'd messed up. She was the one who was the problem. Always her. Always her fault.

It was at this point that Blue strode in, with his cloud of 'raw' foodstuffs and dishes behind him.

"I come floating more-food!" he announced, as he flicked a hand to put up the perception barrier that he'd said that he would, as the other Ford followed him in shortly after. (Blue walked right over to the bed, to sit down next to her, while the other Ford took up residence by the doorway, leaning up against the wall just inside it, arms crossed and not quite glowering.)

"Thanks brother." Miz smiled at him before she spotted older Ford and her expression went flat.

"Perception barrier so he cannot hear us talk to each other, or you-talking; and you cannot hear him talking, or me talking with him, either," Blue explained. "He is not currently planning on trying to talk to you right now, I think. -No issues with 'upsetting each other' here. He is only here to not leave me alone with you, I am educated-guessing."

Miz considered that, chewing on her food. "...okay." She shuffled closer to Wanda, leaning against her. "He's not allowed on the bed." Miz told them all firmly. Wanda winced. Miz was protective of her 'bed' (her 'nest' as it were). Once she claimed it as her own, she didn't like people touching it without her knowledge.

Blue turned and asked the other Ford a question, from the way his mouth was moving. Said other Ford replied without looking at Blue directly, mostly just watching the three of them out of the corners of his eyes. Blue turned back to Miz.

"That will not be a problem," Blue told his little sister. Miz nodded. "You're allowed on the bed, though." She nudged Wanda and the woman moved over so Miz could scoot and make more room for Blue on her other side.

"Ah, I claimed a right before I knew I should ask for it first!" Blue said brightly, grinning.

Miz shrugged. "You're my brother, so you have some auto-rights. But I guess I should confirm anyway." She forked another large mouthful of food. Wanda glanced down at her, "Siblings get free bed-rights? But parents don't?" she asked wryly, considering Miz crawled into her and Seb's bed all the time. ("Yes," said Blue.) Miz nodded. "Parent's beds are always open though." She said matter of factly.

"HM. But why would anyone WANT to do that," Blue noted next.

"Parents' beds are bigger. So you could jump on it." Miz grinned. (Blue had to think about that one a bit, being from a 2D world with no height - thus, no bouncing on anything, let alone parents' beds...) Wanda rolled her eyes and added on, in case Blue got the wrong idea, "Sometimes children can get scared at night, or have nightmares and need comfort. So they're allowed to come into our beds for comfort," she explained. "I haven't outright said that my bed was open, but I guess Miz already knew…"

Blue stared at her.

"But that is what big brothers' 'beds' are for," Blue said.

"Older sibling's beds can also be for this." Wanda nodded. "But not every child has an older sibling. So their parents are supposed to be the one for that." She clarified. "But not all parents do, even though they should."

Blue frowned at this.

"There is no 'also'," Blue told her. "Parents are not comforting. Ever."

"...maybe Shape parents aren't." Wanda said instead. "Human parents are supposed to. But once again, not everyone actually does so. Everyone's different, and handle their children differently. There are good parents and bad parents. Just as there are good people and bad people." She sighed. "...like Sebastian's birth father." She didn't really want to point fingers at Filbrick, especially when Miz had made her feelings (of absolute rage) at the man in question very clear… but she had to bring it up, to give an example.

Blue stopped engaging her on this point. Instead, he made a few finger gestures - combining, stirring, and still floating a few of the ingredients he'd bought together into one large ball...

... and then split it out into multiple sliced sections to begin with, and fired it (with red fire) all-at-once. He then grabbed a floating plate to hold it out under it, at which point he flicked his fingers, the fire went out, the sliced bits fell… and Blue then pulled the plate in, to hold it out to his little sister.

"...Pancakes?" he said. "Also: syrup?" Said syrup bottle floated its way closer, seemingly all on its own.

Miz grinned. "Yes please." And then she flicked her fingers to place a bit of a shield over the bed so none of the food crumbs or syrup would get onto it.

Blue handed it over to her (by way of letting go of it to let it bob in place while saying, "Not mine; yours."), and (without looking), reached out and plucked a knife and fork out of the air where they were both hovering next to his head, to offer over to her next, for her use. After placing them both on the plate, Blue lay back on the bed, and made a 'come hither' gesture and direction to the syrup bottle. The syrup floated in even closer, far into Miz's reach, bobbing there almost expectantly in place. ("Also not mine; also yours.")

Miz slid the rest of the eggs into her mouth before she reached for the pancakes. She did send Wanda a quick glance. Wanda patted her head. "Pancakes aren't dessert, you're fine." And Miz dug in cheerfully, dousing her pancakes in syrup. She didn't usually use this much, but she was kinda ravenous right now. Wanda looked up at the older Ford and sighed. "Miz, you know that you did good with saving the children-"

"Of course! I don't need people to tell me that helping children is right!" she almost sounded offended that Wanda felt the need to tell her this. Wanda sighed. "Right, sorry. I didn't mean to imply you didn't know that." She sighed. "I'm just… I find myself second guessing how to talk to you. Should I treat you like a human child? Or like an adult? Or like an immortal alien demon-god?"

Miz shrugged. "Treat me kindly, treat me well, treat me like a precious shell. I am open while I'm awake, but I can close, and I can break." Wanda blinked. "Wha?" Miz sighed, nuzzling against her. "You're doing fine. I'm not expecting you to be the perfect mother. You're good enough for me as is. You're willing to love me, that's all I need."

(Meanwhile, Blue didn't comment on any of this. He was lazily making small motions to prepare, then cook and eat, a somewhat-large - for him - floating sphere of vegetables. The vegetables first seemingly cut themselves into strips, dividing with a simultaneous snap, almost like a multitude of invisible knives had chopped through them all-at-once; then the outer layers of the vegetables all peeled off like they were bananas. The remaining ends and peeled-bits pulled together at the side and went up in flames to turn into ash, which was then compressed and flicked into a nearby trash can; the vegetables went up in flame and were charred within a fireball of lower-heat for a longer period of time until Blue was satisfied with them - at which point the fire abruptly went out, and Blue dropped them into a bowl that was expertly floated into place below it. Said bowl then floated over to his side, to land on the bed next to him, between himself and Miz, and charred vegetables were lazily floated out of it and into his mouth with a just-as-lazy gesture, one at a time, after.)

(The other Ford tried not to watch all of this, and shuddered long before Bill was done. Because-)

"I feel like you're settling for much less than you should." Wanda noted dryly. Miz giggled. "Naw, you're doing fine." Which only made Wanda ask, "What's my competition?" At that, Miz stilled. She looked down at her hands. "Orange was a proper shape mother, I guess. She gave me food during mealtimes." Wanda waited but Miz didn't add anything else. "Was… that all she was to you?"

"All she was expected to do was have kids and take care of the household. She never really did much of the hugging and stuff." Miz shrugged. "She used to, back when I was a baby triangle. Before the doctors told her that I was unnatural. She used to hand feed me, hold the bottle up to me, and all that. But after my unnaturalness was found out, my tutors took up most of my time, and I didn't really see her much." Miz thought about it. "She liked Will though, still not really the hugging or hanging out with him thing. Will had me for that. He went to Orange sometimes, but she didn't…" Miz frowned. "She would stroke his side and tell him to feel better. But…" She shrugged again. "I dunno, I spent most of my free time with him, so I don't know what he did when I wasn't there."

"...and your human mother?" Wanda asked. Miz brightened up at this. "She was really nice. She didn't understand me or my siblings very well, but she always tried to make sure we knew we were loved!" Wanda blinked at that. She… couldn't really understand what Miz meant. "In what way did she show you that she loved you?" Because… not understanding her… didn't sound like 'love'. Well, no, that was wrong, but Wanda didn't quite know how to articulate what she was trying to get at here. Unconditional love was a thing, that could be it, but being misunderstood sounded… really sad.

"She did this thing, whenever we mentioned we liked something, like meat buns, and then she'd fill the entire fridge with them." Miz giggled. "Which ended up meaning we ate meat buns until we got sick of them, but 妈妈 was trying." She thought about it. "妈妈 showed her love mainly through getting us stuff we wanted and needed. And hugging. She liked hugging, and worrying about our health and stuff. She tried to make sure we were safe and happy." Wanda relaxed somewhat at that. Yes, that sounded more normal to what a mother should be. Well, this was her human mother after all. Even if the way Miz was talking about it seemed… off?

"And how do I rate, compared to her?" Wanda asked gently. She was rather curious. Heck, Wanda sometimes still couldn't believe she was a mother, she was learning all this on the go. Miz shrugged. "You're doing fine, don't worry so much. We can talk and understand each other more easily." Wanda tried to be reassured by that.

"Do you want more pancakes?" Blue asked Miz next. She nodded, having finished her plate. "If it's not too much trouble."

"Not too much trouble, yes," Blue noted from his horizontal position on the bed, as he raised his hands and (without opening his eyes, just flickering his Cipher-eye spell at his forehead, lazily formed another big ball of the basic mix together again, floating in the air in front of him. But this time, before he divided it into flat sections to cook it, he asked her, "...Add-anything? Yes? No?" and gestured at the other still-floating odds-and-ends assortment of ingredients.

"Blueberries." Miz's tail popped out in her excitement, wagging back and forth behind her.

Said packet of blueberries opened up, and a steady stream of them swirled out, into, and through the mixture. It separated, was 'fireball'ed, and then was swooped up by Miz's plate, which flew out and sideways to smack into it like some kind of UFO flying saucer hot-shot pilot. It came to a spinning halt and levelled out, then bopped and bobbed its way through the air merrily back to her after that, as if the plate was very proud of itself for this no small mean feat, and dropped itself back down into her lap.

Miz nommed down, humming as she did. Wanda pet her head as she worked her way through the food. "Thanks brother~!" "Mm."

This sort of thing happened several more times, with different numbers and choices of added ingredients, until the base set of ingredients for the pancake mix were gone, and then Blue chopped up a very large fresh fruit salad with nuts and lots of honey and plain yogurt for her next.

Miz thanked him for those too, and every time he went, "Mm," in return. She also stared at him, to make sure he was eating too. (He was; he continued to munch down on his own charred veggies at intervals, whenever she was eating her own things too.)

And Wanda… wasn't sure what to do. So she just hugged Miz with one arm and watched her eat. "...I suppose, I should ask where this island of yours is."

Miz didn't respond, but she pulled out her Com and texted the coordinates over to Sixer. She also added, [Tell Fiddleford to handle it, we're supposed to relax and have fun this summer.]

"...And update the access on the perception filter that you put up," as Blue floated the last charred vegetable into his mouth.

"On it…" Miz's eyes Flickered. "So… did you see my set up?" Miz asked her brother. "Am I missing anything major? What do I need to do to make it better?"

"Hm. WELL…" Blue said He stretched a bit in place where he lay, and cracked his eyes open to look over at her. "You haven't added my Sixer to the access list, and he is absolutely going to want to go there and look it over in-person himself. Myself, as well." He paused, closing then reopening his eyes. "Did you want a value judgment from me on your work? Advice-instead? At what level?" he said next, a bit slowly and leisurely, as he crossed both his arms behind his body-like vessel's stupid head.

"Fine." Miz glanced at said Stanford quickly before looking back at her brother. "I guess… advice on how to do better, and if you notice any major issues with my set up right now. There's more stuff I'm planning to do later, but having your thoughts would be useful."

"'Better' is relative," Blue told her. "What you did is NOT how I would do it, but none of the locals here want to do any of all of what I have told them needs to be done; Seb wants to do things differently. -I can give you the 'demon' perspective, since both Wanda and Seb are fine-with and-expecting that?" Blue added next.

Miz shrugged. "They want me to hear about different perspectives so I can make my own, based on what I like or don't like from other people."

"WELL," said Blue, with a slow-growing smile. (Ford tensed at the doorway when he saw it.) "I can tell you my own perspective then. Yes?"

"I guess so." Miz shrugged, licking at the syrup on her cheeks. Wanda realized she forgot to bring napkins. Well, she wasn't going to leave now, she wanted to know what Blue was going to say to her (very impressionable) daughter.

Blue nodded, staying lying down prone.

"First, there is the matter of scope. What were you trying to do? 'Save the children'? -How long would they need to be saved," Blue said. "And which ones, and how many." Blue stopped there for now.

"I wanted them out of those cages, and away from the people they were sold to, in some cases. Back with their parents if I could, and then into a safe location where they could live with their parents or a caretaker. Since the whole reason they were even over the border was because they were fleeing the violence from their own country."

"You just and only care about those children? You do not care about any-others? Or whether the people doing this then do the same thing to other children again? And for how long do you want them in a safe location?" Blue noted. "-Is it more efficient to move the children, or to do something else to stop the conditions where the children are?

"I got their parents too. And will have to find other families who are also just wanting to seek sanctuary, which they can find with me. And the people who are kidnapping the children…" Miz glanced up at Wanda. "...I want to do something about them, to stop them from being able to harm children. But I don't know what the correct way to deal with them is, yet."

"You are running into multiple problems here, oh little sister of mine," Blue noted. "One is: are the children safe with their parents, and for how long? You still have not answered this question yet. Two is: only these children who have been caged, or all human children in this dimension who are being treated in a way that will have them die… prematurely die after having been born and survived their initial first year of existence. Which you also still have not yet answered. Three is: would it be more efficient to move the ones doing the harming, or the ones being harmed? And how big a net are you casting? -Those who give the orders? Those who carry them out? Those who enable them? Those who are silent but agree with what is being done? -There are many ways to make an example out of those doing what you do not like or want, to discourage such internal-thought and acted-behavior again in the future," Blue noted next, quite lazily.

"I want to take all the other children too. I know that not all parents are going to keep their children safe, or are safe for their children. But I would have to ask the kids for their agreement to be taken away to a better homelife…" Miz paused. She glanced at Wanda again. "Truthfully, yes, I do think it would be more efficient to move the people who are hurting others, put them somewhere far from the people they want to hurt. But I'm still… working on a plan for that." She wanted to test it out first, on whether she can make a place where people could live and survive, away from the rest of the world, first.

Blue hummed at this.

"There are many planets that can currently support human life elsewhere in this dimension," Blue noted, "If killing-outright is discouraged, or more-distance is needed. That is NOT what I would do, though," he said almost leadingly.

"...I've been checking out Mars actually." Miz said sheepishly. "Humans have already been thinking about colonization attempts. And there are people who are literally willing to pay money to be sent to Mars. So… if I just terraformed it, I could easily tric- erm… convince, some people who I don't want here, to go there."

"Why keep them so close? Communication is possible between them easily, the problematic ones could still give orders from there."

"Because some of them might still want contact with Earth, so, if they realize that their decision was wrong, and they wish to apologize for what they did, the humans here can hear them out and decide if they're allowed back." Miz told him. "I won't make it so that they're not allowed to change their minds, if they want to realize they were wrong and wish to change to become people who aren't the type of awful that want to harm children for whatever reason."

"And would you allow the same thing if these people had been doing all of the child-raping?" Blue noted. "Allow the communication back to everyone-else who is here? Including their victims?"

"...the rapists will be judged by their victims and if they say 'no' then they won't be allowed back." Miz frowned. "But I don't want them back, so they'd be kept away from people, even here on Earth, even if they're allowed back."

"And how many victims do you think will be too scared to say no?" Blue said next. "With all of the other people here who might not even believe them, why they were sent away in the first place?"

"I will be there. I will tell them that anyone who speaks up to defend the rapists and choose to ignore the victim's words will be banished as well."

"That is setting you up for a lot of work," Blue noted. "And how will you know that they have done these things, and what they think and how they feel about it?"

"I can translate what I've Seen into actual video footage, I will be able to show it as 'evidence' of what happened."

"Which means that you will have to See and hear and feel all of these things yourself, exposing yourself to these things over and over, and what happens when these other people decide in a way you do not agree with? How will you then feel about that?" Blue noted next, "After these rapists come back and do all of these things again? Will you allow that to happen, when you again-and-still know better? -And will these local Pines here be 'fine' with you acting as a god of judgment over all of these proceedings, when you had to beg them to agree with you on the rescuing of these children in the short-term in the first place, for you to not be told 'no' for doing what you just did, which was not even something that would stop the problem from happening again all-over-again and continuing-again soon, and they did not say 'yes' just-and-only because you asked them yourself, this-time-even?"

Miz shuddered, Wanda looked horrified. But Miz glared. "If that's what it'll take to make people know what happened, but I will speak to the victims, I will tell them they have my protection, so they're allowed to judge their abusers. And… if a rapist is allowed back, and they continue hurting people, then they'll be banished to Pluto instead. After I make a very public show of how they had committed their crime once again, and letting the world know just how much such a thing will not be allowed." Miz glowered. "And I'm not gonna judge them on my own." Miz leaned back against Wanda. "Mommy's gonna help. And everyone else as well."

"And more children are hurt and killed in the meantime," Blue said. "Is that 'good'? Is that 'better', or 'fair', for those children?"

"No it's not." Miz admitted. "I don't know how to fix that yet, aside from placing all children under a protection Curse. But it would take a while to get that set up."

"The problems here are systemic," Blue noted. "Humans in this country voted a Nazi into power that is jailing children; why would they not vote for all child rapists to be allowed back, and not listen to you, and not believe that you are telling the truth, and not protest the sending to Pluto, when it would be far more efficient to just kill them here? -They could say they were saved by some child-rapist-approving god, out of your evil clutches here," Blue noted lazily still.

"Then they, themselves, will be banished to Mars, and then Pluto, for siding with people who would harm children."

"Even if they are simply ignorant?" Blue said. "Even if they believe others over you? -How many beings believe Bill Cipher tells the truth?" Blue asked of her next.

"Then I will show them what happened, and ask them if they think a child should be treated like that. I will ask them-"

"Faked video," Blue said. "Liars, who lie convincingly, then you are the 'bad guy' because you killed a bunch of innocents for 'thought crimes'."

"Well then, I haven't killed anyone. Only banished them." Miz huffed. This was so hard. She just wanted to get rid of the bad people. Why was this so hard?

"If you send them to Pluto, they will die without intervention," Blue noted. "Will you want to intervene?"

"Peh, I can terraform Pluto too, but they just won't have it as nice."

"You say all these things," Blue then told her, "But they are all full of holes, and you are not thinking of these things, these problems, before I say them. -I can do this all day," Blue told her next. "Do you want to know what a triangle demon would do or not?"

"...what would you do?" Miz asked. Wanda was still staring at the two of them. Banished to Pluto? She could do that? So easily?

"I would proclaim myself the entire planet's Lord and Master for All Eternity," Bill Cipher told her. "I would See who I do not like, and turn every last one of them to stone. -If 'incremental' punishments were 'wanted' for a list of behaviors I did not like, I would start with three days stone-frozen for ALL offenders, then roll out the list. Next attempt at any offense: three weeks stone-frozen. Next attempt: three months. Next attempt: three years. Next attempt: three decades. Next attempt: three centuries," he noted. "I would compile the primary list, and make it automatic-hold-in-place for the immediate-stop ones. Every day at 6:18pm, the stone-sweep goes into effect for those-held-in-place and also lesser-offenses that are on the second, don't-feel-like-stopping-them-immediately, list. Automatic, because why waste my time with doing it all myself when I can automate it? -If I felt like personally applying it in the meantime, to WHOMEVER I WANT, FOR ANY REASON, I would do that. If I felt like giving that power also to others, to delegate this, I would do that. No excuses; they don't die unless someone breaks apart their statue in the meantime; who cares if that happens, if they deserve it," Bill waved off. (Wanda looked horrified. Ford's frown deepened, having noticed this.)

"...so… Weirdmageddon?" Miz blinked. "If I did that, the humans would rise against me. To try and kill me." She tilted her head. "My plan was to simply teleport people away. What if I simply teleported people away, as they commit their crimes? Drop them into a terraformed Mars, without communications with Earth, at least, not for a while. I'll banish the president, and the other people in power who agreed with him on kidnapping children. There'll be a bit of chaos for a while, as the world realizes they're missing, but there are other governors. They'll take over, humans adapt like that. I don't even have to reveal myself to the world. Might be easier if I don't."

"Teleportation as they're attempting the 'bad thing' is better than after the 'bad thing' has already happened, yes," Bill Cipher noted. "But why would all of the 'good' humans rise up against you, if the only humans who are being 'stopped' are the 'bad' ones who were hurting them and causing all the problems? Should they not be grateful instead, and only less-grateful when they see the 'bad' ones become unfrozen, until they realize that the 'bad' ones will no longer be able to do 'bad', because they will become stone-again first?"

"Because humans don't like it when they see someone come around doing stuff to them without them having a say in it." Miz shrugged. "But if they don't know who's doing the teleporting, and don't even know that it IS a teleporting to begin with, then they'll be more focused in trying to get their government back in order. And if I do a mass teleport to get rid of the bad guys from all countries around the world at once, then they can't blame each other for doing that 'disappearing' of those other humans, and will be more interested in getting their government stabilized."

"HA!" said Bill. "If they don't know who or what is doing it, they will think 'god' or 'devil' or 'evil mad scientist' or 'crazy conspiracy theory'. If they think they know that, but don't know why - or don't know that, and also don't know why - then they will make up something stupid and not focus on anything but stupid tearing-themselves-down all-of-the+things," Bill told his little sister. "Humans need reasons, and patterns that they can grasp. If they don't have those… WELL!" Bill exclaimed with a grin. "-An example! One country-government they-don't-trust says that they lost their leaders, too. But how does anyone know that they are gone, well-and-truly? -If those leaders were the ones who did it to all leaders of the others, and were smart about it, they would pretend to be gone in order to make time for their 'phase two', the next phase of their plan. Why would that country that did this terrible-horrible thing not pretend that their leaders are abducted, and move them to a command-operations-bunker instead, to continue leading their country and these attacks on all others from the shadows? Why wouldn't they do that?" Bill Cipher told her in sing-song, pure conspiracy theory, down-the-rabbit-hole-logic.

"Well, why not let them have their crazy conspiracy theories? As long as I can get rid of the bad guys, why should it matter? I'll step in to correct them if they do start considering war or something." Miz shrugged. "Besides, it's not just their politicians who are going to be 'disappearing'. It'll be 'random' people as well. And celebrities. And certain religious leaders too." Miz scowled at that thought. She had nothing against organized religion, but oftentimes it ended up getting pretty corrupted.

"And with the Abrahamic religion that is here, the idiots will likely think that it is the second coming," Bill noted. "And some will think that if they do the same 'wrong' 'bad' things, that they will be taken-to-'heaven' too. Because obviously they got it wrong before, and all the 'wrong' 'bad' things are actually the 'right' 'good' ones that they should all be doing instead." Bill rolled his eyes at this next.

"...there are ALREADY some nutjobs who already think that." Miz pointed out, "And if anyone tries it like what you said, then I'll have them be struck by lightning, they won't die, and they won't be teleported, they'll just be in a lot of pain. As punishment. And if they tried it again after they recovered, then I'll teleport them away."

"And you will be creating many-many more of them, if you do things from the shadows that way," Blue pointed out, "And they won't stop at only thinking them, not doing them, after that. You will be hurting many more humans, who would not have required pain by your current standards if you had done things a little differently instead to begin with. You would be backing them all into a corner, a box with no escape, stuck and afraid like little mice in a maze, panicking, running around without any idea of where any of the invisible electrified walls that will ZAP them if they run into them are. A VERY unfair game for humans that way, little sis. How can you expect them to change or do better, when you are actively REFUSING to give them the information they will need, in order to learn to do 'good' and then do 'better'? -My way is better," Bill told her next, "More efficient, less energy expenditure both at the start and later. 'From the shadows' is a BAD idea, when it comes to humans; believe me," he told her.

"I still think revealing myself to them would be problematic." Miz frowned. "But I guess, if I've already teleported away all the bad guys, then I could reveal myself and tell the remaining humans that I only got rid of the bad guys."

"'Fear not!' in a LOUD BOOMING VOICE tends to work well?" Blue told her with a grin. Then he sobered a little. "But yes. With these Pines here, and Seb saying HE will be the one deciding how and when to 'fix things', you will likely run into local opposition here VERY quickly if you do the 'revealing yourself as a god' thing to all the rest of all the humans that are in this local dimension right here," Blue said seriously next, looking past Miz and up at Wanda next. He gave her a thousand-mile stare.

Wanda sighed. "I think your idea is… a start… but you're going to have to workshop this out with everyone. I still think the sudden shift in everything in the world would be… too chaotic."

"When Order is creating 'bad' laws and rules that need to be broken, Chaos is what should step up," Bill Cipher told her seriously next, with a terrible gleam in his eye(s).

Wanda watched Miz brighten up at her words too. "Yes! Chaos! Exactly! But aside from that, if there's someone who says and believes that some other race of people shouldn't exist, then I will send them to a planet where they don't exist! Hah! It's what they wanted, now wasn't it?! They should be thanking me!" Her grin had turned somewhat crazed, and Wanda ruffled her hair, "Cool it, at least 5 notches down." Wanda deadpanned as she mussed Miz's hair. "Nyaaaaa!" Miz complained.

"She wants you to go low-energy, little sis," Blue told her, "Like my Stanley tells me to do also, all of the sometimes, and sometimes even a little more." Miz whined and slumped over, batting at Wanda's hand. When Wanda felt that Miz was sufficiently ruffled, she finally (to Miz's relief) took her hand away. "There's going to be a severe shift in population on Earth if you did that." Wanda sighed.

"Well, we're having an overpopulation problem here right now anyway, aren't we?" Miz fixed her hair. Wanda sighed. "...I don't know how to refute you right now, I will need some time to think about what your plans are and how to refine and fix them." Miz accepted that response with a nod.

"...What's the state of Mars, when you send them there? Is it fully furnished like that island you made?" Wanda asked. Miz scoffed. "It'll have houses and shelter. And farms. They'll have to work to make their own food. No more entitled bullshit where they complain and hate the people who are 'below' them, and yet, still require those same people that they claim aren't 'important' to support their lifestyles."

"If you're going to do other planets, you might as well do it RIGHT," Blue said to her next. "Grab multiple planets, allow all of the communications between them, through stable permanent portals…" Blue glanced over at her, "But ONLY allow people to move portals to other places if they have no intent to hurt or kill any of the people who are there. Redistribute-and-reassess later as-needed. Learning, and knowing all of the current options. Plan for needing other-ones-new," Blue told her next. "Segmenting parts of planets for travel-and-living-and-working-and-playing into multiple non-overlapping areas for multiple groups may be easier as well."

"...and what if I don't want them being able to communicate with others, and spreading toxic ideas?" Miz pouted.

"If you are doing your job as a 'teacher' well, the toxic ideas will not be adopted-elsewhere," Blue told her. "Eventually they will die out, if you still allow death. Or those-converted can go to that other-place that they seem to like better," Blue told her next, "And live in hell for awhile until you come to me for advice on how to better handle-and-educate them." Blue shrugged.

"I want the humans to govern themselves." Miz sounded annoyed. "I don't want to rule over them."

"They're doing that now, and you don't like that," Blue noted. "They're doing that now and you're thinking about ruling over them to try and fix it. What do you want?" Blue asked of her.

"If I get rid of the people who are spreading and committing the bad ideas, then these people will…"

"And you are deciding what the 'bad ideas' are," Blue noted dryly (with a bit of a smile and a twinkle in his eye going), "When you say that you do not know 'right' from 'wrong'."

"...The thing I DO know is that anyone who thinks it's in their right to harm children or rape people are terrible and should be gotten rid of." Miz huffed.

"Then why haven't you gotten rid of them yet?" Blue said next to her lazily.

"..." Miz glanced back at Wanda, who blinked. "Are you… really… waiting for my permission?!" She gasped. Miz nodded. Wanda rubbed her head. Oh, wow. Her demon-god of a daughter was really holding back on doing things that she thought was 'right' because she didn't have her permission to go ahead with them?

"...I never said that I thought my little sister's idea of what 'mom's are, to their 'daughter's, was smart," Blue drawled out at Wanda drolly.

Wanda was still rather blown by the responsibility that she just realized she had. She… she had an all powerful alien god who was willing to change the entire world… as per Wanda's whims, if Wanda told her to- gave her permission to- just as she'd done with the island- Wanda groaned. This was too much for her. She had her face buried in her hands.

"Every 'demi-god' has their 'angels' or 'devils' as their enactors for change, for them," Blue noted next, stretching in place a bit again and closing his eyes. "Be careful what you WISH for, with her!"

"For the last time, I'm not going to be the new God." Wanda groaned.

"My little sister is a dragon-god, and is placing you above herself in her own little pantheon," Blue noted. "Don't think you have much of a choice in that..." he told her next, "...So long as you want to be a 'mom' to a god, instead of a 'mother' or 'other'."

"...this wasn't what I thought adoption would be like…" Wanda muttered. She was startled when Miz curled her little hands into the bottom of her shirt. Wanda looked up to see Miz staring up at her with wide eyes. "...do you regret it?" Miz asked. Do you regret me? Was what she didn't say, but Wanda could hear clear as day. Wanda sighed. "Of course not." She pulled Miz into a hug, wrapping her arms around the shaking girl. Wanda placed a hand on Miz's head, holding her close as she leaned her own head down to rest on her.

"I would never regret adopting you. You're my daughter. And I love you."

"...The lesson for you today is: 'morality' starts looking VERYdifferent," Blue noted, as he slowly sat up in place, "When it is a god who can do just about anything - do they have the responsibility to fix everything then?" Blue noted. "Because they can? Does it make them cruel if they do not?"

"...s'not dad's fault he can't help out, yet. We're workin' on it…" Miz's voice was muffled into Wanda's chest, but she sounded a little annoyed.

"That lizard likely could have worked on it sooner itself," Blue noted, not giving in on that one at all.

"He never thought about it as being something that was even possible for him."

"Failure of imagination is still a failure," Blue told her.

"Dad's not very imaginative. He's boring." Miz's shoulders shook, a bit from amusement over her dad's blandness, and also from her pent up emotions from hearing Wanda assure her that she was wanted.

"Your lesson is: you need to think things through more-and-further. Brainstorm with me, or with others. But these Pines are not good for this; they think too much in boxes, spend too much time complaining about what they cannot do and solve instead of finding ways to do them instead. -They will hobble and constrain you if you let them," Blue told her quite seriously. "DON'T let them."

"The people here have been so broken down from how awful things are here, that it's become 'normal' here for things to be awful." Miz corrected.

"Since when are any Pines supposed to be 'normal'?" Blue then complained. "Since when did they stop seeing hardship as a challenge to overcome as it is, and start so incorrectly seeing it as a terrible horrible insurmountable hard stop instead?"

"They tried too hard to be normal." Miz sighed. "I've been trying to see about reigniting their sparks- so they stop being annoyed and upset, so complacent, and think about how to stop caring about unfair laws as being anything important for them to need to follow."

"If they don't see that before they get their children kidnapped," Blue warned her, "Then they may just fold under and capitulate-completely instead. I almost had mine cave in and five me what I wanted during Weirdmageddon," he noted, "And I saw something similar also happen back-there-and-then, here. -Would they even think of asking you to teleport their own children and families out of custody?" Blue asked her next. "Because nothing that any of them said sounded anything like that out there."

"Mm…" Miz rubbed her head against Wanda, purring lightly at the way Wanda was still scratching her fingers through her hair. "They're stuck in thinking about human solutions. They don't quite understand what exactly I'm capable of doing." Wanda stiffened at that. Clearly she didn't.

"And they don't ask enough questions to find out, and they didn't spend enough time in other dimensions for any of the differences to sink in, yes-yes," Blue grumbled next, waving it off. He fixed her with a look. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I've brought them to mine for a short trip, to meet my Friends." Miz hummed. "I planned to take them over for more trips. And possibly… to your Set, if that's allowed? If you're okay with them coming over?"

"I'll handle things with 'Ford," Bill said with a not-very-happy pure grimace next.

"...you think it'd be a good or bad idea to bring that Stanford over to my Set? To see how things work in my place?" Miz wondered.

"Bringing him here now was a logic error. I already told him I'd bring him back, next," Blue told her. "He is NOT going to want to walk himself straight into your place of power, no way. He isn't THAT stupid." He gave her an amused half-smile, half-grin at the last.

"...does he know that my Set is made out of my corpse?" Miz asked wryly. Wanda grimaced at that. Right. Still… was kind of horrifying to think about.

"Not yet," Blue said. "And if Stanley was in on that conversation - and he would be - he'd ask me to tell him all about all the potentially-problematic things first," Blue noted. "And then I would tell him. And then Sixer would know."

"...what are the problematic things? I mean, aside from the obvious ones." Miz turned away from Wanda, after wiping her eyes, to blink at her brother.

"The stupid lying lizard, the Time Baby, the Federation; fixed the Friend Deal problems. Having a Pillar arrangement; nothing being a Game; idiots who know ways of capturing and temporarily-killing you. Do I really need to list them all, right here and now?" Blue asked of her next, frowning slightly.

"I'm fine with stuff not being a Game. People can do what they want without Rules of that sort." Miz raised an eyebrow.

"I'm getting rid of all the stupid Rules, little sis," Bill reminded her.

"...hey brother?" Miz asked, frowning a little. "Do you have to fix Sets that aren't yours? They're not your responsibility to fix, even if… I mean, I know that it's irresponsible to allow bad things when you could stop them- but this isn't…"

"Why wouldn't I?" Blue said to her. "If I don't, then they're the barbarians at the gates. They might have enough leverage from the other side to break what I fixed, if I don't. And why would I leave them all to a broken existence anyway, when I could help them all make all of the things just so very much better?" Blue asked her, as if the question was both one he'd thought of before, and also one that was very confusing to him - like he wasn't sure why she'd asked. "They are…" his eyes jittered back and forth in place, "The children being abused, who need saving. Yes?" he told her next. "The stupid lazy lizards are abusing them, leaving them all in their little cages to die."

"...I haven't… fixed things in my world, even though I could take over the Federation…" Miz sounded guilty. "Pynelope used to get mad at me for that, for not throwing my power around and just… taking over everything…" She tightened her hold on Wanda's shirt. "And t-then she got ki-killed while trying to fix things herself…" Wanda felt cold. That… was how Miz's child died? Wanda could read between the lines. Pynelope… a name so similar to Pyronica, who was Miz's Friend, the one who had children, whom Miz had helped raise.

"...she was right… wasn't she? Shouldn't I have… just… taken over everything? I don't know- I didn't want to- because I don't know what's right or wrong! I can't- I know Tina knows what's right or wrong- I can't trust myself to fix things-" Miz trembled, Wanda was rubbing her back now, laying her head down on Miz's.

"You know that some things are absolutely 'wrong'," Bill reminded her, "You know several things you don't want. You don't have to fix everything all at once," he told her next, sitting up a bit straighter, "You can start by just making things 'better'. -Everybody starts somewhere," the triangle demon who called himself 'Bill Cipher' reminded her.

"I've already done many raids and purges on rapists. I've made it very clear that 'Bill Cipher' would utterly destroy anyone who does such a thing." Miz slumped against her mom. "'Course, people misunderstood what I meant, but whatever… as long as I get them to stop doing that, I don't care what they think my reasons are." Wanda sighed. How screwed up were things over in Miz's dimension? Really?

Blue sighed, and looked over at the other Ford.

"WELL," said Blue, waving the last dregs of miscellaneous floating errata (extra silverware mostly) down to the bedside table and standing up, pushing himself off of the bed. "I should probably take Sixer over to that island before he explodes. -He'll probably have a list of 'fixes' he is wanting for the other Pines to then do," Blue noted.

"Ok, that's fine. They have ownership of the island anyway. I don't want to own it. Just want them to figure out how they want to deal with it." Miz sighed. "I just don't want have to have children in cages looming over us when we go to New Jersey for summer vacation. I just want to have fun with everyone."

"They have ownership until another ship runs into it, cruise ship, submarine, or otherwise," Blue noted. "And what happens when you are not here to maintain the energy output and draw, once that happens too many times to maintain?"

"Perception Filter, they'll swerve away, thinking it's some kinda storm." Miz waved off.

"And if they decide they want to investigate that odd, out-of-place, permanent-seeming storm, thinking that they might see something there?"

"Linked into an illusion spell, which is carved into the mountain holding the island up, it's set up like a Fidelius Charm, only the people who know the location can tell other people of the location, and anyone who doesn't know, cannot find them, or discover them."

"That would not prevent an actual physical collision from occurring, if they try to steer straight into it," Blue said with a frown.

"It does, the island literally doesn't seem to exist for anyone or thing that doesn't know it's there."

Blue's frown deepened. "And the people on it?"

"They are inside it. They don't know the coordinates, but they're allowed in and out. Won't be able to bring outside people into the island if they escape the island back to the mainland and come back later."

"'The island' is not 'the people', little sis," Blue told her, moving away from the larger discussion to logic. "And 'things' do not 'know' that something is or is not there; that requires cognition-function." He frowned at her, not liking the disconnect between what he thought she was saying, and what he had seen when he'd been using his spell to look around the island. What he'd seen was in better condition than she was describing and he was querying after right now, but… (If he'd not been allowed access to seeing it before - and it had looked to him like he hadn't, from what he'd seen Miz tweak when he'd asked for access for both himself and that Stanford - then he was right in this. Those loopholes that he'd thought he'd seen were there, and the fact that they were there and existed meant that they were something that someone else could exploit.) "If you do not have this entire thing keyed properly to an entirely separate pocket of existence, you are going to run into trouble."

"Collisions and stuff aren't possible. I could show you the charm parameters… the entire island is half-in-and-out of a subspace, anchored into place. Can hold up even if I'm not here. Draws from the ambient energies in the world to maintain itself."

"'Half in and out' is a problem for energy use, little sis," Blue said to her. He'd Looked at her charm parameters there. "You are used to all of the energy everywhere, coming out of nowhere-seemingly, and having more energy than you know what to do with, forever-and-always. But half-in-and-out means there is energy needed to allow some things-and-people to make the transition and not-others, not only 'every time' but constantly and consistently," he said to her next, "Because it is half always-there, and also half-not. And that includes things like air and like sea water. -Don't just 'anchor' it," Blue recommended, "Make the energy draw robust, available from other sources not-just-you. Just in case. Yes?" he said to her. "You shouldn't have to worry about unexpected draw-downs from there over time, if you do that. There are things on the spaceship and elsewhere that could be used to break into that space, by someone who knows where to look. An 'accident' is unlikely, but still possible," he said to her next, "Even with things solely-sourced from this planet. (...even though the probability of that actually occurring in the timeframe they were talking about was so close to nil it might as well be zero, if not negative one.)

"...ok." Miz agreed easily. "I could hook it into the earth's tectonic movement energies. Or make the thing solar powered. Or even carbon powered." She paused. "I feel like I'm not explaining this very well?"

"Your words and explanations are not matching what I did see, yes. And I should not have been able to see it, to have found its location, before you said where it was, if there wasn't a problem. Check your math, yes?" Blue said to her next.

"...then what did what I make look like? Maybe I'm not understanding what I made?" Miz frowned. She looked back at it. "Ah, it's not hidden from Scrying spells and the like…" she found.

"I was able to find it with my looking-spell just fine without knowing where it was, yes. Your parameters for 'not finding it' are a little bit skewed," Blue told her next. "Some humans are sensitive, or Sensitive. You see it much more with all of the sailors who survive," he warned her next. (Not enough that it was very likely at all by human standards, but… Bill wasn't human.)

"...oh." She paused. "Would they just think it's Themyscira or something?"

"It is 'half in and out'," he reminded her. "They would likely see-and-or-feel both the island and the permanent-storm," Blue then told her. "And it would potentially put severe strain on the illusion, depending on how sensitive or Sensitive that they are. And they could point it out to others on the ship, removing those protections entirely. -It is a nonzero probability, and I don't know what they would think it is, beyond something that absolutely calls out for exploring. Humans are like that," Blue noted.

"Right. Well, that could be tweaked without anything happening to the people on the island." Miz nodded. "I can even pull it right back out of the half-in state without harming anyone there. Would it be safer to do so?"

"Easier to set it up more like the unicorn glade, and put the opening to it elsewhere-not-in-the-middle-of-the-sea," Blue noted. Unless you really reallyWANT to keep it there - in which case, keep it there? And add an extra key for entry beyond 'knowing where it is and that it's there'?" That seemed like the least safe piece of it all to him, really, the thing not actually having a proper keyword or lock.

"Ooooh!" Miz straightened in place, "I did want to move them to somewhere safer than the middle of the ocean, just didn't know where to put them where they would be outside country borders and therefore, safe from any laws."

Blue blinked. Then he grinned.

"You are now-planning on kicking the annoying unicorns out of their glade, for humans?" he asked her next. (Ford, frowning at that particular grin, pushed away from the wall by the doorway and strode forward.)

"Naw, they're jerks, but they're not bad enough for that." Miz snorted. "I'm simply going to Copy what they did with their Glade and place the island into their own spot like that, and put the entrance area near the ocean borders- or even near Gravity Falls, if the Pines want to have ownership of it-" She sent off a text to Sixer through Seb, letting him know she was moving the island. His response was a rather exasperated one. It made her giggle.

"That Stanford suggested creating hidden places of safety like the unicorn glade anyway, so this'll just be like that?" Miz glanced over at him. "Wouldn't even take much to do, since I'm just Copy Pasting."

Blue nodded. "Yes." He didn't flinch when a six-fingered hand came down on his shoulder. "He does have good ideas sometimes." ("-What do you want, Sixer?" Blue said next, turning his head and directing it back at that other Ford, which meant Miz couldn't hear it, only see the movement of his mouth and lips.)

("What were you grinning about?" the other Ford said grimly.)

("I thought she was going to kick out the unicorns, but she's going to shift the island around the humans into a new glade instead. Entrance will be moved and locked down better. She is talking to Wanda, getting 'yes' responses and texting the local Ford information as she does things.")

(The other Ford did not exactly look all that thrilled at this.)

("...Are you watching what the man-eater is doing?" the other Ford asked him next, after a longer silence. Blue's Cipher-eye spell was still flickering there.)

("Some things," Bill told him, which Ford didn't exactly find comforting in any respect.)

"Hey~since I'm the one building this new island glade, does that make it a dragon glade?" Miz asked Wanda. The woman sighed. "If that makes you happy." She was still wondering how… okay, any of this was. But if Miz was helping people with her powers, it was a good thing. Just had to double check her work. Just in case...

"So I caaaaaan banish people to the shadow realm?" Miz batted her eyes innocently at Wanda, who laughed and then deadpanned, "No. No you may not."

Blue turned to Miz. "How much more food will you need after glade-ing the island to re-energize yourself?" he asked her.

"...I know the location of several all you can eat buffets in the New York area that I've always wanted to go visit…" Miz practically purred.

"Which ones?" Blue asked her next. She listed them off, his Cipher-eye flickered a bit in and out more, and then he pulled out a wad of cash and handed over several hundred dollars worth of cash.

"For the eating, you plus one in case you want to take your Wanda 'mom' with you as small-Miz, instead of older-Xin or another vessel-form here," Blue noted, tucking the rest of the wad away. (Ford eyed him over this. "What did you pay her out of your tips for-")

("-more eating, after glade-ifying the island, for helping with the energy expenditure. She can go out to eat whether all of the others go with her or want to pay for her or not," Blue told him. "Where do you want to go for supplies, before the trip there?")

(Ford frowned at him. "You're taking me-" Blue cut in with, "-You won't relax until you see it for yourself, you clearly think the place is deficient; don't complain. You can say 'no'." "...That isn't much of a choice, Bill," Ford added darkly.)

Miz took the money and blinked. "Do you wanna come with me to the restaurant, or should I go with mom?" She glanced up and back at Wanda, who was rubbing her head. Another buffet, of course. Well, whatever. Miz was doing a lot right now. She shouldn't let her daughter go hungry. (Also, a small part of Wanda realized that letting her cannibal-curious demon daughter go hungry was definitely a bad idea.)

"My Sixer will need supervising and 'ferrying about', Blue noted. "You should not wait for me before eating more of all of the things." ("She will give over 'claim' on the place by the end of it. You will be able to check and decide before entering. ...I will be with you, and I do not let people or demons claim places that I am standing inside," Bill told Ford next, and Ford frowned at this.)

"Ok, though if you finish up earlier, we should still go to lunch." Miz flicked her fingers and squirreled the cash away somewhere safe. Wanda realized that Miz was going to become some sort of urban legend in the restaurant business if they continued to allow her to eat like this.

"Done?" Blue asked Miz. Miz nodded and shuffled her way off the bed, holding her plates.

Blue's 'looking-spell' Cipher-eye flickered a bit, and he smiled.

"Good job, little sis," he told her. "Think I might need to cheat a little bit to find it now, almost." He then asked her, rather than try to one-up her there: "Location and password for entry?"

"Night Shark 115." Miz responded immediately. Then she grinned in that way that told Blue she was definitely making some sort of reference to something, before giving him the location of the (invisible) entrance next. Which made Bill raise his eyebrows. Behind the waterfall in the 'Falls? HM.

Blue turned his head away slightly, flickered again, and his smile became a grin for the space of a moment. He patted her on the head next.

"Very good job, little sis," he said to her next, before turning away from her and facing Ford's frowning (and somewhat-judgmental, crossed arm atare). ("She is handing it off to Sixer, to hand off to the local Glasses, and she put the invisible entrance behind the waterfall in the 'Falls. That Glasses should be able to secure it very well there. Password is: 'Night Shark 115'," Bill told Ford. "Next stop: the 'Falls.") Bill then waved open a portal like it was a hole in the ground, and stepped forward, dropping right down into it.

Ford let out a curse in Galactic Standard and immediately jumped in after him.

The green-colored portal Blue had opened (seemingly) in the floor closed.

And Miz was cheerfully making her way out of the room with her plates and utensils. Wanda just stared, so… that's it? All those important decisions and apparently, creation of some magical hidden space… and it only took a few minutes?! Wanda sighed, so that's how it'll be from now on...

Fiddleford was quite confused by these texts that were being sent to him. They were from Sebastian's phone, but was apparently from Stanford. And the subject matter? Apparently… Sebastian's newly adopted daughter was Xin (Ford's dragon friend?!)'s little sister, and therefore, also a dragon (?!) and had just… magically broken into the child camps (which Fiddleford had really wanted to do something about but had been afraid to do so) and apparently created a whole… island?

...he was really confused.

But Ford was asking him to go check on the children, with medical staff in case anyone needed treatment. He winced. Well, how to explain THIS to the workers?

Everyone on staff had to sign a non-disclosure contract to keep what happened in the Center a secret. He even put nanomachines into people's coffee so he'd have a way to monitor and deliver electric shocks if anyone betrayed their secrets...

...ANYWAY! Fiddleford quickly called up the medical staff and asked for anyone who spoke Spanish, or looked non-threatening… Or were good with children. He kept it vague enough for now; it seemed like it might be a good idea to keep it under wraps, not let too many people know yet, and...

He had a lot of work ahead of him.

Wanda went off to a buffet with Miz. Just the two of them. Wanda had things she needed to talk to her about. Without Blue there.

Wanda also made sure Miz didn't take all the meat, and that she got more vegetables. Miz had pouted, but Wanda had put her food down and Miz got some broccoli and carrots. And cauliflower. And string beans. She still avoided peppers like the plague. Wanda found that rather amusing.

"Hey, Miz?" Wanda asked softly, as they sat down to eat. "Hm?" Miz chewed on her mouthful. Wanda sighed. "Your brother…" she trailed off. Wanda hadn't minded Blue. He seemed ok enough, for a demon. But… as she got to know him more, saw him interact with people more… well, Wanda didn't really know how to feel. Annoyed, would be one.

But Miz loved him. And Wanda wasn't sure how to put this. "I don't think Blue should be around us, not until he learns how to behave. He's… well, he's a bad influence." She sighed. And Miz looked a little distressed, and also resigned. "You don't like him."

"I can't say I really like him, but I don't dislike him." Wanda sighed. "Why do you like him?"

"He's my brother. And he loves me." Miz replied, which had Wanda sighing again. "Sorry if this sounds offensive, but I'm unsure if he knows how to express that?"

"He has his own way of expressing it." Miz said quietly, digging into another bite of food. Wanda winced. "Miz…"

"You don't get it." Miz said sadly. "I… I know he's an asshole, ok? But… he loves me." she tightened her grip on her spoon. "I'm his sister and he loves me." She picked at her shirt, pulling at the bottom, "He's an asshole, but he's also kind. He just…" Miz glanced up at Wanda before going back to her food. "He just needs to learn to care about more people than just me."

"...no offense, that sounds rather horrifying." Wanda deadpanned.

"...he's a demon." Miz said. "And I'm not the best person either."

"That's not true. You're a very sweet girl."

"Only to you guys." Miz said simply. "I don't really give a shit about other people."

"I know for a fact that's not true. You literally just saved a bunch of children."

"Children are different." Miz protested. "You don't even have to care, to know that children should be protected, that's like…" she waved her hands. "...a thing! Like how you shouldn't kick puppies! It's just… something you know!"

And Wanda sat there, staring at her daughter. And she buried her face in her hands. "There's so much we're going to need to teach you…" she muttered.

"Huh?" Miz tilted her head.

"Knowing those things means you're a good person inside." Wanda explained patiently.

"No it doesn't. It just means I'm average. I know I'm not evil. But there's no way I'm good. I'm a terrible person."

Wanda had a headache. How was she meant to explain to her daughter that caring about the lives of children and wanting to help people meant she was a good person? What sort of fucked up world was Miz living in, where she thought those were just a 'matter of course'? Well, it should be a matter of course, but it wasn't and- "You're not a terrible person."

"Yes I am!" Miz insisted. "You don't know what I've done- how many people I've hurt-" and then Miz flinched and slapped her hands over her mouth, looking away. Wanda sighed. "Do you feel bad for it?"

And, seeing as Wanda wasn't yelling at her or looking mad at her, Miz slowly lowered her hands and responded with a meek, "Some of them."

"Did you ever willingly kill children?" ("Not willingly.") Wanda held back a flinch at that one. Ok. "...were you forced to kill children?" and Miz looked uncomfortable. "I… I wasn't… forced per say…"

"But someone else talked you into it." Wanda said. And Miz nodded slowly. Okay, yeah, fuck. "But you didn't want to?" ("I didn't want to kill anybody.") and Wanda reached her hand out, pausing at Miz's flinch, and placed her hand on Miz's head to pet her gently. "You didn't want to do it. And you feel bad about it." Wanda said softly. "So you shouldn't do it anymore."

"...but…"

"No buts." Wanda told her. "You don't want to do it. And it makes you feel terrible. So don't do it anymore." she repeated. "The killing, children or whatever. If you don't like it, don't want to do it, and it makes you feel terrible, then don't do it anymore."

And Miz was quiet for a long time. "And what about the people that I want to kill?"

Wanda sighed. "If it's self defence, I won't say you can't protect yourself, if someone's attacking you or trying to hurt you." She started, "But murder shouldn't be the go-to solution for things."

"...you sound like Tina." Miz said, smiling softly.

"Is this that friend of yours who wants to take over the government back at your side, and make it less shit?" Wanda raised an eyebrow. Miz nodded, "YES!"

"...well, I'll take this as a compliment." Wanda drawled. ("It is!")

The mother-daughter pair continued to discuss through the rest of the morning.

Illusion is Reality

Chapter 116.5

-Fire-

Ford braced himself, expecting the sideways fallout and already feeling his stomach clench... and then fell straight down to land directly onto his booted feet. He straightened up slowly, looking around. They were in an alleyway.

"Bill-" he began, then he heard a stomach growl and stop. His own stomach. It was only then that he realized that he hadn't eaten yet this morning. "Ah…"

"Errands first. You can eat with the island-glade'rs, since you seem to like not-eating-properly so much," Bill told him.

Ford absently touched the bioscanner on his wrist.

"I'd also like to talk with the local Fiddleford before-" (Bill made an ugly chittering sound at him) "-you don't have to come with me for that, Bill," Ford said next, lowering his hand and arm.

"And leave you two to talking-forever on stupid things? -That local Stanford's phone should have his number on it, just call him instead and-"

"-I'd rather tell him the password in person," Ford said, and Bill quieted. "I can meet him at the entrance to their Institute," Ford noted. "You can… keep an eye on us," Ford said with a slight raised-eyebrow amusement, as he realized that Bill had on the same sort of crossed-arm rather cross looking expression that he himself had no doubt had when Bill and the man-eater had been together earlier. (Ah. Stan had brought up Bill's 'mirroring' again, before they'd left, hadn't he? How Stan had thought it had gotten stronger, or similar, and…)

Ford let out a deep sigh, as he turned to face Bill.

"What supplies and local wildlife do they have there currently; will you give me the full list, please?" Ford tried, though it was still a bit difficult for him to put it more politely as a question rather than a demand. (...especially with Bill outwardly looking a bit kike a disapproving older matron at the moment.)

Bill stared at him for a long moment, then let out a "Yeesh," and started to walk away.

Ford barely held down the anger, and forced himself to follow Bill without speaking to or yelling at him further.

And about one minute later, as they were marching off and down the sidewalk, Bill began listing things off...

Ford was almost half-curious at what Bill himself was buying. Seeds, mostly.

The scientist hefted the pack onto his back, and finished checking the straps. He'd bought what he'd needed to quickly. One more short trip for some additional supplies, and he should be as ready and set as he could be at-present to take on...

"-We'll need to grab some things from the forest and lake, before we go in," was Bill's contributed interruption, as Ford folded the bags for the purchases he'd just gotten done stowing in the pack that he'd just purchased inside the store, and slid them into a pocket.

Ford's eyebrows went up at this. "I'll want to stop by the junkyard for a bit of scrounging as well," he noted.

"Can grab a wagon and wheelbarrow or two there while we're at it, for carting all of the things around," Bill noted, as he lifted and shouldered his own rather large camping backpack, "...since YOU don't want me 'going overboard' on the introductions. Or anything else." Bill gave him a long look. (Ford sighed. He had no illusions on having talked Bill down from presenting himself as an 'older human magician' as opposed to 'ancient alien space wizard' or 'completely normal human being'.)

Ford texted the local Fiddleford a few more things to add to the list that he hadn't been able to find in the last two stores, or that had been a bit out of his current price range here: glassware, some of the more esoteric chemical components, and several over the counter medical drugs and other supplies that apparently normally required a prescription…

Entering the waterfall was an odd experience for Fiddleford. The loud pounding of the rushing water gave way to silence- for just a moment. And then a bright light, making him and his people wince and squint their eyes. And then there were some gasps of awe. Fiddleford opened his eyes and his jaw dropped.

Paradise, was the first word that came to mind.

A lush green island, vibrant plants, bright blue sky with picture perfect white clouds… even a sun in the sky… though that couldn't be possible, they were indoors… weren't they? Lovely yellow dandelions grew along in the grass, bobbing in the light breeze. He could hear the sounds of water lapping lightly against the sides of the island. He stared at the large expanse of ocean… how?!

And that was when he noticed the people on the island, who were rushing to hide inside the quaint little houses he could now see. "Ah- don't worry! We're not here to harm you!" he called out. Dr. Poddar placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's ok, let us handle this." (He'd been called along with a few other people when Fiddleford told them all that something amazing had happened and he required assistance. Not everyone came, but he was glad that he had. This really WAS amazing!) And he walked forward with his hands held to show he had no weapons. *"Hello there. Are you all alright? We're not here to hurt you, we're just here to see how you're all doing, are you alright? Do any of you require medical attention?"* He spoke in stilted Spanish. (He was rusty ok? Hadn't really practiced the language since high school!)

And they were met with… Fiddleford blinked. A very attractive man in some sort of pale yellow-uniform. The man walked up and nodded at them. "You are the Specs party. We are doing fine." The man said, his inflections sounded… off. Almost robotic. But at least he spoke English. And seemed willing to speak with them, instead of run away and hide from them, looking scared. "Ah, yes. I'm Fiddleford McGucket, I… sorry, what's your name, sir?"

"I am Care Unit #4," the man responded. "Creator has told us that you and other guests will be arriving. Please wait for the other Care Units to calm the people and assuage their fears before you come any closer."

Fiddleford blinked and then texted Stanford (Seb's phone) real fast, to double check something. His friend said that Miz had created all this...

"...care unit?" Dr. Jerald's eye widened. "Are you an android?!" He was practically vibrating in excitement at this. Did someone really make a human looking android?!

Care Unit #4 shook his head. "My body is biological in nature, though I do not require sustenance, as my Creator has supplied me and my brothers with our own internal energy cores. We are programmed to care for the children and the machinery here on the island, to protect the inhabitants and maintain their health."

"...so… bio-androids?" Dr. Jerald scratched his head. Fiddleford chose to ignore that for now.

He could see some of the people slowly leaving their houses, led by more men and women in that same uniform. They were all conventionally attractive to look at. Though Fiddleford noted that many of them appeared to be of Asian descent.

But then Fiddleford blinked as thought he heard… someone singing out from farther behind him? A man's voice, and it was somewhat melodic, but definitely unpolished - not some recorded song from a speaker somewhere.

(Fiddleford looked around, and noted that the place where they'd come in from the waterfall looked like some sort of cave mouth from this side.)

The singing was a bit odd, but it sounded like… whoever it was who was singing it was clearly happy, Fiddleford could hear the smile in his tone, just by the way he was singing it.

And somehow… it all sounded just a little... familiar?

...and apparently it was a very silly and odd song in Latin about rabbits getting into a burrow full of… yarn? And… something about a tea party with cows? Fiddleford's eyebrows went up. ...Well, that would explain why whoever was singing it sounded like they were smiling, embarrassed at knowing exactly how silly what they were singing actually was, and having fun singing it out at almost at the top of their lungs anyway, projecting it very clearly across the yards and fields.

The other scientists and medical personnel with him were now heading forward to give each of the people here a check up, to see how their health was. The Care Units translated between them and the people, for those who didn't know English. But Fiddleford was distracted by the singing.

...So were some of the locals. A few of the children were poking their heads out of doorways, looking over and across the largely-flat plains towards the cave mouth like he was. (They didn't look scared, more curious than anything at what they were hearing.)

Fiddleford could tell that there were two people walking towards them, with… some supplies with them, but they were too far away for Fiddleford to see them clearly himself just yet.

But he could hear their song, and their singing. There was a bit of a beat to the silly-sounding song, and the chorus was something easy and repetitive; so were the verse lines. If Fiddleford had to guess, this person probably had a spring in his step as he was singing out this… well, the first thing Fiddleford thought of, as the singing troupe of two started making theirr way close enough to view them more easily, was that this was some sort of travelling song, silly as it was.

The man who was singing had only the one traveling companion with them. They both had pretty expansive packs on their backs, and both were pushing a wheelbarrow, each. The older man also seemed to have a small red wagon attached to a rope to the pack at his back, trailing behind him.

And as he came within a good twenty yards out from the first several houses, the older man stopped in place and trailed off at the next verse. He called out a "Greetings!" in Latin out to them, raising an open-palmed hand as he did so, and then set down the wheelbarrow and started working at the rope and pulling the medium-sized child's wagon up a bit, to sit more stably in place.

"Um, hello? Are you… the older Stanford from another dimension? My Ford told me about you." Fiddleford waved a hand as he called out to him, looking at this older man who… really did look a lot like his friend, but much older in age.

"Yes, yes," the older Ford called down to him, and then the older woman at his side called out, "Sí, sí," in the exact same inflection, volume, and tones. The older Ford lifted his head from his rope and Fiddleford barely made our the, "Really, Bill?" in Latin to him next.

"Well, welcome! We just got here ourselves. Givin' everyone here a health check up, ta make sure they're doing okay after what they've been through." Fiddleford nodded. "This place is beautiful." He sighed, looking around. "I don't know how this was done, but it's amazin'."

"It's missing a few notable essential items, though," the older Ford called back to him, paused for this Bill-woman to translate for him (with a slight grimace at this, but his grimace lightened as he called back next, in the language itself, "Do you speak Latin? It's close enough in roots to these childrens' language that they might be able to guess at some of it, and would likely be less worrying than hearing more English out of a bunch of new 'white devils' right now."

"I learned it." Fiddleford shrugged. "Me and my Ford thought it would be fun to learn, if only so we could make our spells more realistic when playing D,D & more D." He said with no embarrassment whatsoever. The other Ford nodded, not seeming to think this was an out of the ordinary reason for doing anything.

Then the older woman who was with this Ford here unshouldered her pack, straightened back to her full height, and called out something rather loudly - likely loudly enough that anyone within a hundred yards of her could have heard her. She spoke for awhile, projecting rather than yelling, and turning in place as she did so, hands on her hips.

The older Ford looked a bit exasperated at this, and Fiddleford could tell that he didn't know a lick of Spanish either. ...Not that they needed to, given that tone. Some things were just universal. Like the imperious tilt of her chin upwards. Or the hands on her hips. Or that particular tone...

Fiddleford blinked as he heard a couple giggles at the sing-song bits that came out next, as the older woman gestured a bit, turning back a bit in place again, and… tilting her head back a bit, to spread a hand across her forehead and lean back dramatically to...

-The other Ford stood up again quickly, but not quite quickly enough to catch her on her feet. Fiddleford heard the annoyed and exasperated, "Bill!" as the other Ford managed to catch the woman halfway to prone, but it took a bit of struggling for him to get her (and himself) upright the rest of the way, with both hands under her shoulders and her full weight nearly held up by them now.

He didn't quite hear whatever exasperated thing the older Ford said down to her next, his face above hers, but whatever the woman said next sounded quite dramatic and, apparently, very silly (given some of the giggles he heard from the children around them). Or maybe it was just the gestures she was doing as she'd said it - she'd flailed out her arms a bit at her sides back and forth, then tucked her hands under her chin and called out something only slightly quieter up to this other Ford (fluttering her eyes up at him?) that had had the man tilting his head back and rolling his eyes up at the sky. He looked like he wanted to just let go and drop her straight down. But he didn't. (And all the children noticed all this, how he didn't lash out or start screaming or launching a fist or a foot at her body...) He just pulled her upright, dragging her heels a bit, and frowning somewhat annoyed and exasperated at her, as they not quite batted at each other during this process, 'battling' it out until the woman was upright again. It was only then that he let go of her, once again. (The children noticed this.) And the woman didn't seem off-put or scared of him at all, during any of this. (The children noticed this, too. In fact...)

There was some soft laughter coming from the children, peeking out from behind the legs of their parents or the Care Units.

...Well, it did look almost like some sort of play. Or a farce… Fiddleford felt almost sorry for the man.

The woman cupped both hands over her mouth, and called something out again, and this time a few of the children came out of their houses, and a few of the older ones raised hands (after shooing some of the younger ones who were waving both hands in the air to stay back, the older ones were still a bit more cautious). A few were then pointed at, after a clearly overblown series of what was obviously a chin-tapping, hemming and hawwing and an in-Spanish 'you, and you, and YOU! and-' to then start trekking their way across the flat grassy ground that surrounded the habitable buildings towards them, as the 'volunteers' were finally selected. (...Or allowed the privilege of helping the two of them up there with their belongings and packs?)

"Dr. McGucket-" One of the other scientists came up to him. "The people are ok, and this… what IS this place?! Where did these people come from?"

"Ah, this was… a rescue. I guess Dr. Poddar hadn't briefed everyone." Fiddleford nodded at her. "These people were from those camps, and they've been evacuated, and rescued and brought here."

"...how?" The woman asked. Fiddleford wasn't sure how to say this aside from, "...a dragon did it."

The woman paused and then she grinned. "Omigosh! A dragon?! That's so cool!"

"Y-yes. But we cannot reveal this to the world. The-" Fiddleford coughed. He was going to have to make this all up wasn't he? Dammit Stanford! "-don't want to upset the… the dragon… erm…"

"-The dragon owns this place! They want their hoard-island cleaned up a bit and humans are GREAT for that! So they're 'sharing' the place with them for now. Farming and terrain-shaping work for the privilege of staying here." he heard called out in English right in his ear.

Fiddleford jumped, holding a hand to his chest. That woman? But… she was still a good twenty yards away? Directing the children about imperiously like a queen among loyal subjects, but with a happy smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye as she did it? And when he looked over at her and she gave him a smirk and uptilt of her head in response... -How?

...Well, whatever; that was a good excuse as any. He repeated what he'd heard from the woman, and winced even as he said so. "B-but the dragon isn't hostile. He wanted to save the children, so… ah… we can't reveal this location- especially not to the government. The dragon would be rather upset," he added next.

"Wait, is this Xin's island?" Dr. Clark jogged over. "That dragon that Dr. Pines is-" And Fiddleford turned and slapped a hand over his mouth. "Please keep this professional." And Ford's personal life, and romantic endeavors wasn't something to be put on blast right here and now. "But yes, this is Xin's island… though… from what Ford has texted me, we have ownership… or… guardianship? Of it."

The woman nodded. "Oh. That's amazing! The director is so amazing to have a dragon-"

"...He doesn't have a dragon. They're friends." Fiddleford tried to correct her. "Not a pet. Never assume to own a dragon." Ever. He was certain that would be the worst idea. Frankly, he was still unsure how to feel about that dragon… when had Ford met them? And apparently his other friend Sebastian had adopted the dragon's younger sister? (That was the story that they'd told everyone after all, that Xin and Miz were brother and sister… just adding onto the already complex web of misunderstandings. Ford hadn't gotten around to fully explaining it to Fiddleford yet.)

While Fiddleford tried very hard to make an excuse for this island, Care Unit #4 came over again. "Do you wish to sit? I believe we are about to make lunch for everyone here. You are, of course, invited. So long as you are not a threat to my charges here." Two small children were clinging to Care Unit #4's legs. They stared up at the scientists. A little boy tugged on #4's pant leg and asked something. #4 responded, far more gently and more natural sounding to the child than he spoke to Fiddleford. #4 patted the boy's head and the child giggled. "There are communal picnic tables." #4 told Fiddleford before he turned and walked back to the village where the other children and several dozen adults were setting out plates and a large bowl of roasted vegetables.

The people here seemed… happy. A little wary of Fiddleford and the other staff from the Institute, but they seemed reassured by whatever the other Care Units had said. They seemed a little tired, and some of the children looked far too thin, but they were being tended to by both the Care Units and the medical staff from the Institute of Oddology.

Fiddleford glanced around, but he couldn't see the older Ford or that woman that he was with. They weren't where they had been anymore, and he couldn't see where they'd gone off to with all of those things...

...up until some of his scientists started pointing and exclaiming, and he turned around completely where he was standing to look.

The two of them were off at the far edges of one of the fields now, with a veritable gaggle of children of all ages surrounding them at this point, along with all of their belongings. He heard some softer singing in Latin, joined by some rather enthusiastic-sounding children of the younger school-aged set; the older Ford was rather surrounded on all sides, over there. Meanwhile, some of the older teenagers had shovels out and were digging - it looked like one of the small wooden garden shacks was open, and they'd gotten the hand tools from there. A few of the youngest children were toddling around those older ones, and the woman, too.

That wasn't what was causing the exclamations from his scientific team, though. What was, was the fact that a tree was over there that hadn't been there before - there were no trees here that any of them had seen aside from a small bunch on the far side of the island (a small forest of birch?). And, before his very eyes, Fiddleford saw a few children move away from another point, one of them holding another shovel, the woman stood there with planted feet, making some elaborate gesture up to the sky, and then...

...a tree was there, like magic almost. -Like watching a time lapse over months and years take place in the span of a handful of seconds, all at once, really.

And one of the other scientists asked Fiddleford, "Is that woman… also a dragon? Like that Xin man?" Fiddleford could only shrug.

Another tree sprung up, and another, and then another after that. They didn't grow much higher than six feet tall, and they all looked to have some sort of fruits or similar growing from each of them, but it was hard to tell at this distance.

"Well, looks like they're going to have a much larger selection here now." Fiddleford grinned, despite himself. He texted his Stanford quickly about who that blue haired woman with the older version of him was. And the response, starting with a not so reassuring 'Don't panic, but…' made Fiddleford feel cold. A-an alternative version of Bill Cipher? Fiddleford quickly shook it off. Sebastian was an alternative Bill and he was kind. So… this one should be… okay? After all, she had a whole gaggle of young children laughing as they ran around her.

Fiddleford took a few deep breaths. Right, yes. It was fine. And this Bill was with a Ford, there shouldn't… Fiddleford frowned. Oh, if this Ford was anything like his own, and with how he'd been around his own Bill, up until they realized how dangerous that demon was… well… no, Fiddleford wasn't going to judge. He straightened and walked over to them, hoping to speak with this older Stanford a little; it was only a five minute walk, not quite enough time to let his anxiety get the better of him and have him second-guessing himself too much. "Ah, hello again. I see you're adding fruit trees. I'm guessing you've got more than just fruit trees in those supplies of yours?" He looked at the wheelbarrows.

The wheelbarrows weren't full of dirt, plantings, or any of the sorts of gardening tools one would expect to see in a wheelbarrow. Instead, it was full of various woodworking tools, such as axes and two-person saws, and assorted other odds-and-ends, such as carving knives and rope, ribbons and pinecones and shoelaces, a handful of firestarter blocks, fishing line and metal hooks and an assortment of wood screws and nails.

"...Oh?" Fiddleford asked, curiously.

The woman didn't respond. She seemed to be actively ignoring him, as she raised up the next tree.

He heard a sigh, and the older Ford called out to him in Latin, "If you don't mind, we could talk over here." There were a few wide-eyed looks from the children surrounding the older Ford, as they scurried out of Fiddleford's way. The older Ford seemed to be trying to soothe those within reach, talking in Latin while giving one child a ruffle of hair here and another a light touch of a shoulder there, while still smiling (somewhat ruefully).

Fiddleford noted, as he sat down on the ground over by where the older Ford was, that the man had shifted into a crouch; one that still looked rather at ease, but would also allow him to spring forward and tackle Fiddleford where he sat if, Fidds expected, the man thought he was doing anything wrong.

"So… amazing place, huh?" Fiddleford waved a hand around at the island around them.

"That would be one word for it," the older Ford replied in Latin, giving a slight worried grimace, before easing out his shoulders and smiling at one of the little children (who couldn't have been more than five years old) who tugged at his shoulder and had frowned a bit as they talked to him in a language neither Fiddleford nor he understood. The older Ford reached out and somewhat-awkwardly (in the way that a non-parent would) patted the child on the head, replying, "It's alright. I'm fine, as are you." and the rueful tone, the smile, and the easing of tension in him seemed to communicate together what the older man's own words in the wrong language could not.

The little girl laughed and reached up to grab at Ford's hand, gripping him gently with small fingers. She babbled at them, tone light and cheerful.

"Yes, yes, I am a terrible conversationalist, I know!" the older Ford said in lighter tones, barely holding down a laugh almost despite himself, smiling and nodding to her as he did.

The girl pointed at the large picnic table where food was being laid out. She tugged on Ford's hand, a questioning tone in her voice as she pointed at the food again, while looking up at Ford.

"Ah," said the older Ford. He gently disentangled his hand from the young child's grip, then raised his left arm and tapped at his wrist then pointed at himself, while saying, "I need a bit more time here," then pointing twice at the ground below his feet where he crouched. Then he lifted his head and looked over at the Bill Cipher. "Bill and I" he began, gesturing with an open-palm between the two of them. "Need to stay here for a bit," he made the 'watch tapping' gesture again, then gestured at the ground in a large circle between the two of them, then moved his hand, palm down, towards the ground as if slowly pressing against something. "Until he's finished this first bit of work." He pointed (open-palmed) at Bill as if presenting the demon to her, then gestured at the trees, then seemed to count the trees quickly, gesturing at each deliberately with his pointer finger, then paused for a moment, then gestured in a line following them, "Bill has a few more trees that he wants to grow," he ended, lowering his arm and looking at her expectantly. "You" he open-palm pointed to her, "Can stay, or go as you'd like?" a gesture to the ground here, and then he made a 'walking' gesture (scissored his first two fingers, pointed downwards, over top of a flat palm) while moving his palm and hand in the direction of the tables, then a sweeping gesture over to the tables after. "And then we will follow you over later," he made the 'watch-tapping' gesture again, then spun a finger at his wrist several times clockwise, then gestured between himself and Bill, and then made a slightly different 'walking' gesture with both hands across his chest (scissoring his first two fingers, pointed downwards, with both hands this time), in the direction of the tables, then the sweeping gesture again. "Okay?" he reached out and ruffled her hair on her head, while smiling fondly at her.

The child glanced over at Blue too, before she seemed to shrug and ran off over to the table of food. Ford turned back to Fiddleford, and asked him, "Did you get my texts from the local Ford's phone to yours earlier? I never received a reply."

"Oh yes. He sent me some through Sebastian's phone. It was… well, it was a rather surprising thing to get so suddenly." Fiddleford chuckled. "I told him not to do any work this summer, he's supposed to be taking a break!"

"Well, he and his family are certainly doing that." the older Ford noted. "But I meant my texts to your own, using his phone. There were some supplies that I believe they will need that I could not acquire for them myself. -And to answer your earlier question: yes, we have more than seeds in those wheelbarrows. The seeds and other planting-related items, we put in our packs," and they'd ended up taking another trip through the stores after they'd found those wheelbarrows and a fair number of other things in the junkyard; Bill had ended up buying most of the tools with his larger reserve of funds. -Not in the cash from his tips, which he'd used up rather quickly, but from the 'debit' account in the phone app, from his 'personal shopper' slash 'fashion consultant' work over the phone a few days earlier. They'd used up most of it, but they'd both made sure to leave enough behind for a quick trip to an ATM machine, and...

"I wonder if we should bring them some animals from the farms around the 'Falls too? I have to admit, part of me would love to have a little farm again. Man, all the work at the Center's great, but I miss sitting down to tend to some pigs now and then, ya'know?" Fiddleford noted, bringing the older Ford out of his thoughts.

"One of the things that I requested were fish breeding units and fish eggs. The local fish population is low, and not many schools were pulled from the sea surrounding the island along with it apparently, according to Bill." The older Ford frowned a bit at this. "I'm not entirely certain that they could support a fair amount of large cattle here, not until they've gotten used to farming for themselves rather than harvesting - we brought books for that, which Bill has assured me are in their language. But chickens would be useful, if only for their eggs. Though plastic netting might be better than metal link, considering these childrens' prior circumstances." the older Ford noted.

"Yeah, I'm rather curious about that sun up there as well. The color is slightly off. I'm sure it's artificial, but how? That's amazing." Fiddleford grinned. "I wonder if Stanford would let me examine that dragon friend of his?"

The older Ford frowned a bit at this Fiddleford's seeming lack of empathy for these peoples' situation. He seemed more taken with their surroundings that the people who were currently inhabiting it.

He opened his mouth to ask the local Fiddleford if he-

-but Ford was interrupted by a soft tugging at his left sleeve before he could. Ford looked over to see the young girl from before was now back, with a small plate of mashed sweet potatoes and other roasted vegetables. She held it out to Ford with a smile.

Ford blinked at this, then raised his wrist and scanned the food. "lt is edible, and safe to eat," he told her, nodding, then gestured between her and the food, and then himself and the food, open-palmed. "Do you wish to share? Or is it for me to eat?" He mimed grabbing at it, then bringing it to his mouth, and opened and closed his mouth abruptly, then cocked his head at her both contemplatively and questioning. The girl nodded, holding it out to him.

Fiddleford chuckled. "I think she wants you to have it," he told the man gently. Then he sat back, leaning his weight on his hands, as the older Ford held out both hands, and the girl handed it over to him. (He smiled and thanked her for it, giving a sort of bobbing nod to her solemnly as he verbalized his thanks, before she grinned and babbled at him, then ran off for the tables again. This time, several more of the younger children that had been around them followed her over. The others were still working currently with Bill, though a few of the teens jogged off for the sheds...) "I don't know what we're gonna do with these people here. I will place protections around the entrance, won't let anyone tell anyone about them either. But people will notice that all the kids have gone missing from the government camps."

Well, that answered that question for him, at least. "As I see it, there are two options, neither of which I find appealing," the other Ford told him, as he opened a flapped pocket in his pants and pulled out a fork, "As both solutions would likely require either a measure of help or non-interference from the demons."

"Demons? Wasn't… wait, oh. Right the whole… alien thing." Fiddleford said, as the other Ford dug into his gifted plate of food. "I'm not used to thinkin' of them as demons, they don't act much like that triangle man and his cohorts."

"They do sometimes," the older Ford told him very, very neutrally, without letting his expression change at all.

"I haven't heard anything about massive death tolls or giant waves of weirdness happening anywhere." Fiddleford raised an eyebrow.

"Most people haven't. Because it was also kept silent here, is my understanding," Ford noted, giving him a bit of a look.

"True. Nevermind all that." Fiddleford snorted. "Well, I doubt Sebastian would have allowed it here."

"They may not have done as much here, but they both have certainly done so elsewhere. I can speak to that one," Ford nodded his head at the blue-haired woman who was a bit farther away from them now, still raising trees, "Having done exactly that in the dimensional set where I just came from, and worse."

There was something about that statement that made Fiddleford frown. "But… you're still… traveling with her?"

"Him," the older Ford said, digging his fork into the sweet potatoes, "And not exactly by choice." He didn't look horribly tense, though, as he took another bite of his food.

"Ah, I see." Then Fiddleford frowned as he followed that line of thought and paused. Son of a bitch, Sebastian's new daughter and Ford's new dragon friend were… also Bill Cipher- wait, was only one of them a Bill Cipher? Eh… Fiddleford pushed that thought aside for the moment, wasn't important right now. They weren't dangerous to them, so that was good enough for him for now. "Well, nothing to it now but to stay updated on the news and try to handle things as they come."

"Given the current state of affairs, there isn't much to be done about any of it at present," Ford more or less seemed to agree. He finished up his food quickly, then let out a breath and set his plate to the side. "If I understood Bill correctly, he is wanting to set up several trees and some rows of fruit bushes and plants for the children. Right now, he has peaches, pears, lemons, limes, oranges, avocados, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, watermelons, and… watercress, which isn't a fruit but he was arguing with me about them needing it for some reason," Ford noted with a sigh. "He's also brought along dandelions and hemp. He's rather convinced that the growing season here will be year-round, and that it will support every type of growing environment, so long as they are planted in the correct section of the island. There are apparently a few areas that will stay warmer than others year-round, even if there won't be any frost."

"Pretty impressive spread." Fiddleford grinned. "Though, I think the dragon beat you to the dandelions." Fast growing, edible, good for the soil… yeah.

"He insisted on bringing a few more regardless; they're in the wheelbarrow over there," Ford agreed.

"Well, if the island is temperature controlled or isolated like this, in an enclosed system, it's almost just like a greenhouse, ain't it?"

Ford glanced around. "That's what worries me; that it might be a fully-enclosed system. I'm not entirely certain about the oxygen carbon-dioxide mix, or the nitrogen. I never got a chance to study how much air was exchanged with the outside of the unicorn glade in… well." The older Ford quieted for a moment. "This is a rather more worrying case. It is clearly much better isolated from the outside world than I realized that these sorts of places were. But if the 'sun' up there is always putting out more heat, and there isn't really anyplace else for it to go, even at night..."

"I think that's what the ocean is for, it absorbs some of the heat and I'm hoping there's gonna be a night cycle, to let that cool off…"

"Yes, but it would have to be continually cooling itself at the bottom of it, pulling the heat out to some other system, or it would simply just keep getting warmer and warmer as well."

Fiddleford looked down. "What if the heat is pulled away during the night, to go back up there, to be the sun again the next day? A circular system?"

"That would take energy or work though, and that's what's so frustrating about it," Ford noted. "I don't have half the scientific equipment I need in order to make any real determination of the current state of affairs of the environment here, and even with what I was able to scrounge out of the local town's junkyard this afternoon, I don't have the supplies to construct such equipment right now, either. The children may seem largely all right, for now, but..." The older Ford shook his head. "I assume you didn't get my texts before, then, possibly because you were inside this glade already?" Ford added, changing the subject slightly.

Fiddleford pulled out his phone. "Signal is off…" He frowned. "Oh, there's a Wi-Fi network here…" He tapped it. "...420 Blaze it Yo…. what kinda name for a Wi-Fi IS this?!" ("A demonic one?" the older Ford noted dryly.) And it was password protected. He typed in Night Shark 115, and was pleasantly surprised to see it worked.

"Somehow, I am not surprised," the older Ford told him. "It's fine. I remember what I wrote to you. -They're going to need significant amounts of supplies, primarily glass, glassworking tools, and metal. Potentially stone as a material as well, and concrete, for their own construction purposes," the older Ford told him, glancing around.

The the older Ford continued on with: "Also medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and equipment. Bill reports that there are basic first-aid kits here, but no penicillin or bacterial-infection fighting analogues, no blood transfusion kits; no body-scanning units, no anti-allergy or insulin medications; no disinfectants, surgical supplies, or medical birth control of any sort." (The older Ford switched over to English at this point; there was basically no-one nearby to hear them talking just then, having gone farther away with Bill or for food.) "They apparently have some of the usual cleaning supplies, such as soap and other toiletries, but hardly an limitless supply of them available for their use, by any means."

"Yes, my medical team brought supplies in already. And I'm hoping to set up communications so we could send in doctors as needed." Fiddleford sighed. "I worry about how they're going to do, in here. It's safe, for the moment, but what to do when the children grow up? They can't stay forever."

"One would hope that you'd fixed the local problems much sooner, long before then," the older Ford noted. "You're going to have to hide those communications though, as well as encrypt them. You won't want anyone finding this place by simply tracing an unexpected signal source back."

"Oh we've got VPNs installed in all our systems. Dr. Lichme programmed it. Impressive work." Fiddleford nodded.

"You'll need to trace a hardline connection from the Institute to whatever you set up close to the entrance, still." The older Ford thought. "Most of the wireless signal, if not all of it, should fade behind the water, any farther out into the area out by the lake, though." He wondered if that had been intentional for a moment.

"We have our own servers, encrypted and isolated from the rest of the world wide web. Ford is paranoid about people stealing his projects and data."

"...and now he'll only have to wonder about a potentially rowdy bunch of children with nothing better to do with their time than to become inveritable hackers, gaining access to all of it, instead?" The other Ford gave him an amused look. "You might want to order a few more of those servers," he noted almost teasingly, barely biting down on a grin.

"Oh man, of course." Fiddleford laughed and ran a hand through his hair. "And he'll be leaving that work to me and everyone else while he's off sipping drinks by the pool. Well, I'm the one who urged him to go on this vacation so I can't say anything." He chuckled. "I'm thrilled for this actually. Almost feels like I'm some sort of secret agent with the whole 'hidden society' of refugees."

"I'm glad," the other Ford told him, then paused for a moment. (He consciously shrugged off the idea of Fiddleford turning these impressionable young children into a very different sort of cult than before.) "I was a bit worried at the push-back I was getting from some of the others at the idea of breaking all of these children out of their confinement," he admitted to Fiddleford. "They didn't seem to think that there was anything that they could do about any of it." The older Ford frowned, as he pulled out a flask of water and took a good draught from it.

"Aye, breaking them out ourselves would be too dangerous. This… this was magic?" Fiddleford gestured around.

"Yes," Ford confirmed. "By the man-eater."

"...who? Xin? Miz?"

"Yes," said Ford.

"...didn't know they were man eaters… but then again, dragon…"

"She," Ford said, giving him an odd look. "They are-" he was interrupted by one of the children squealing loudly and jumping with pure joy over one of the medical personnel giving him a basket of toiletries. Fiddleford smiled. "Well, regardless. I doubt Ford would allow any 'eating' to happen. Considering they're together intimately, and Xin hasn't eaten him yet."

"I've seen them together. The man is asexual, as is the man-eater," the older Ford said, a little weirded out by Fiddleford's words.

"Really?" Fiddleford wondered about that rumor of Ford and Xin apparently doing some kinky stuff in the break room and realized that it must have just been a ridiculous rumor. He felt rather embarrassed for believing it.

"Why did you think that they were?" the older Ford asked of him, frowning.

"Ah, some of the other scientists like to gossip and come up with all sorts of wild theories about their boss and his dragon friend."

"Have any of them asked him to confirm or deny these wild hypotheses at any point?" The other Ford was raising an eyebrow at this.

"No." Fiddleford laughed. "Too afraid to ask him, in case he gets embarrassed or offended at their probing and fires them or something."

"I should think that if he was that sort of individual, they shouldn't be wanting to work for him in the first place," the older Ford frowned.

"Oh we pay very well." ("That's hardly worth an inability to speak one's mind, or worrying about being overheard discussing a subject that one's employer doesn't like.") Fiddleford shrugged. "But they weren't so afraid of being fired up until a few years back when Ford fired a whole bunch of the staff after a surprise questionnaire."

Well, that seemed rather odd. "What was the questionnaire?" 'And if the answers were so important, why hadn't these questions been asked prior to employment in the first place?' the older Ford wondered at this.

"If anyone thought that people who weren't from a good college shouldn't be allowed to work here." (Ford winced at this.) Fiddleford glared. "Apparently, someone was harassing some other people over this, makin' 'em feel bad and wanting to quit because they thought they weren't good enough. Well, Ford wasn't having any of that. Not here."

"That… question sounds rather unfair," the older Ford said, thinking of several different ways that such sorts of questions could be interpreted differently. (He, for one, would have felt offended and defensive at being asked such a question, if he'd been of a college intern's age, because he doubted that he would have taken that any other way than a slap in his face that he still didn't deserve to work in such a place. If Fiddleford had not elaborated upon the point of the whole thing rather straightaway...) Not to mention the fact that... "Why not simply fire those who were actually performing the harassment? These people could have lied on the questionnaire itself, couldn't they?" He'd tended to find that the bullying sort tended to be better at social interactions and reading situations on the whole. It was how they tended to get away with such behavior with other people so often without consequence.

"He didn't fire everyone." Fiddleford assured him. "But one of our interns was kicked off the program, and everyone else had to be on their toes, managed to get some testimony from some of our cleaning staff about bad treatment from a few scientists, who were looking down on them for being janitors. Well, Ford wasn't happy about any of it."

Ford looked very confused at this. "Aren't most people too busy with their work to even notice the janitorial staff, if they are staying until such a late hour?"

"That's the issue. Some people were going out of their way to make life harder for our cleaning staff, add that to some other reports of harassment, well. We had to put a stop to it."

Ford blinked at this. "Oh." He sounded rather disturbed by the whole notion. "Yes," he said, readjusting his glasses with a slight frown, "I can see how that would require... some measure of adjustment in the work environment."

"Being a boss is hard sometimes. I like to think I'm a good person, but having to handle reports like that… made me real angry, it did."

"I assume that anyone working there now knows to report such problems straightaway to you," the older Ford said, "Knowing that their concerns will be promptly addressed."

"Yes. We have a whole section now for that sort of thing. Things have been going smoother. I'd like to think that we have a good work environment." Fiddleford was rather proud of that. "Our intern program is going strong. Actually, I heard back from one of our old Interns, she wants to come back and work here for real. Been sending me some of her papers about the local frog population and how different it is from frogs just the next city over. Well, with the way the Northwest mudflap factory used to dump some kind of radioactive chemical waste here, I wouldn't doubt it." Fiddleford frowned. "Ford has already built a water purifier for the rivers here. Published his work on that too. I'm sure Miss Se wants to come back and study the frogs, see if they're recovering from those years of poisoning."

Fiddleford was quite proud of how Viola was doing. And according to Ford, she'd continued texting him photos of cute frogs and toads over the years. He thought that was rather adorable.

"Are they the same frogs, or newer generations?" the older Ford asked him, straightening in place. "Have their lifespans been affected considerably by the mutating pollution component vector?"

"Newer generations, well, bit of both?" Fiddleford scratched his head. "I haven't done much work into them, but from what Viola's written, the frogs don't seem ta have longer lifespans, so far as she could tell. But they lay less eggs than normal for their species." Fiddleford frowned. "Which is bad, frogs and toads are a big part of the local ecosystem and all that. So with the cleaner waters now, hopefully it means the population will be able to rise again."

And suddenly, a shadow loomed over the both of them.

"Really, Sixer? You're sitting here talking about frogs when you should be paying attention to what-all's happening around here?" came a peevish-sounding voice in American English.

Fiddleford turned in place to see the other Bill standing there, hands on their hips, with several of the older teenagers standing at their (his?) side like a contingent of bodyguards, wielding shovels held upright.

"It is a highly relevant topic of discussion, Bill," the older Ford said easily from where he sat. (He'd settled down into a more comfortable position, after the last of the children had left for the picnic tables.) He didn't bother trying to switch back over to Latin from English; that would only be seen as more suspicious behavior by the teenagers, the older Ford suspected (from experience with other species and populations who weren't all wearing a dimensional translator unit upon their person). "You yourself noted that there are no frogs here, nor deer, nor rabbits or fowl or anything else rather large and animal, beyond humans. The latter few are not a problem, since they won't be spoiling the crops by eating them down to their nubs. However, without proper control of the bug population, there could be problems later. Knowing whether it would be a good idea to introduce several of the native species of bug control from this area would be-"

"-There isn't a lake or a river here, Sixer," Bill cut in. "We'd have to set that up first. The only fresh water here's coming from that water purifier, and most of it is going out to the fields." Bill frowned looking out in the direction of the nearest coastline. "Might be worth it to ask her to turn all of that to freshwater first, though they might need the salt. ...Maybe split it off, half-and-half? Not surrounded, but divided? HM."

Fiddleford was watching this… other Bill, in something much like fascination. He(?) was… well, a woman, first off. Fiddleford couldn't help it, that was his first observation. He shook his head. Ah, if Sebastian's son was a son, then this Bill was a guy as well. It shouldn't be so difficult- though, then Fiddleford wondered if this Bill was possessing someone or not. No yellow glowing eyes… but those pupils weren't human. The slitted dark pupils of those blue eyes were… rather striking.

"I think I'd rather have a better idea of what the current state of this, so-called island, is first," the older Ford drawled out, as he pushed himself to his feet.

...a little too abruptly, because the teenaged boys and girls surrounding Bill were startled and they all started to raise-

Bill held up a hand, palm open and facing-forwards - a signal of 'halt' and they lowered their shovels and settled again after a bit. They all looked uneasy though.

Bill turned his head and said something to them all in, presumably, Spanish, and they all walked off for the moment, headed towards the… sheds. (To put their shovels away?) And apparently there were a few teens who had made it back from those wooden shack sheds with several reed-woven baskets; they were at the treeline and plucking a few fruits and such there, presumably for supplementing a few more dishes at the tables.

"Got your own little gang already?" Fiddleford asked lightly, before Ford could.

The triangle demon stared him down for several rather drawn-out seconds, then raised his gaze back and over to the older Ford.

"Why is he talking to me." the Bill Cipher said to Ford rather flatly.

Fiddleford blinked where he sat. "Oh, sorry, I didn't introduce myself yet. Hello. I'm Fiddleford McGucket." He smiled, trying to be friendly.

Bill didn't look down at him as he said, "I KNOW who you are; you're the local Glasses." His jaw worked slightly. "Why is he still talking to me," he repeated to his Sixer again next.

"...Why don't you want him talking to you," the older Ford said, eyes narrowing slightly.

"He likes watching things burn," Bill said, just as flatly, and it took Ford a moment before the pin dropped. And when it finally dropped for him, it dropped hard. (And Ford felt a little bit faint, as his metaphorical hackles started to rise…)

Fiddleford blushed. "Oh, did Ford say that about me? Geez." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Man, I blow up a few lab benches and he never lets me live it down…" He looked up at Blue. "I don't like watching people burn, if that was your fear?"

At that, Bill flicked his gaze down to him.

"I'm not 'afraid' of you," the demon all but sneered out at him next.

"...That's not quite the problem here, Fiddleford," the older Ford not quite breathed out (wondering if this was how Stan had felt when he'd-) Ford stepped forward and past Fiddleford quickly. "-I think that y- we should all go over to those picnic tables and get something substantial to eat, now," the older Ford said rather quickly, getting a hand around Bill's arm and not quite pulling, not quite leading that Bill Cipher forward and then along.

Fiddleford frowned but got up and watched the two. What was the problem here? He wondered what had happened between this Bill and his own dimension's Fiddleford...

Miz hummed, lying on the couch with Zach cuddled in her lap as she and the kids watched cartoons. On screen, colorful ponies were arguing about what to do with the giant apple they had found. RubyMane wanted to send it to the royal scientists to see if this was some new species of giant fruit. PetalKick wanted to eat it. Poor MiracleNote was onced again playing peacemaker between the girls. Frankly, Miz was surprised that his marriage to the princess didn't change much of his role in the show. You'd think he'd be busy helping his wife run her kingdom or something. But apparently she was doing great on her own and he was technically going out as an ambassador. Eh, it was just an excuse for the show writers to let him hang out with his friends whenever.

"Eat it! Eat it!" Zoe chanted. Diego huffed. "If it's a new kind of apple, they need to study it!"

The two argued and Zach sighed. "Just cut the apple in half!" he complained. On screen, they did just that. Miz giggled and snuggled Zach, enjoying his soft clothing. "Lookie you mister peacemaker~"

Zach giggled and Miz relaxed on the sofa, Flickering now and then to check on the island. She wondered when Blue would finish up his own fixes to her set up? She hoped things worked out there. She was considering changing out some of the layout, within reason. Probably ask the humans there for what they wanted...

"Hey, are you four gonna watch cartoons all day?" Dillon asked as he came in to lean over the couch. Frankly, he was surprised Miz was fine with watching children's shows. The kids blew raspberries at him. "Wow, rude." Dillon laughed. "So, dad says we're going out to lunch soon. Get ready for that, kay?"

""""Kaaaaay~"""" The kids chorused. Miz wondered if she could go too, even though she'd just finished going to the buffet with Wanda? Then again, food~

"Miz! That tickles!" Zach giggled, and Miz realized she'd been nibbling on his hand. She quickly spat it out. "Sorry." Miz flushed. Yeah… definitely needed a snack...

Blue didn't take all that long to eat some of the food the inhabitants of the island provided to him - as he felt was his due for all his hard work on their behalf. And it hadn't taken all that much time to get all of the initial trees and bushes planted, either. Passing out the books and other supplies, he had left to Sixer and one of the constructs earlier - though Sixer still looked and acted very uneasy around them. Blue didn't blame him for that; he hadn't been able to finish checking every last aspect of Miz's programming of them yet, so he hadn't been able to tell Sixer to just relax around them. (He hadn't been able to decode it all yet.) All Blue had been able to say was that the 'taser' gun Sixer had made would work on them, and that they weren't biologically any faster or stronger than he, Sixer, was himself.

Blue wasn't about to tell his Zodiac not to worry, or that he was being stupid for worrying, when he himself didn't actually know that himself. (Plus, Sixer could tell when he was lying now, which Blue wasn't about to try and change. Only way he'd made any in-roads with him at all, lately - Blue was pretty sure about that. And Stanley had said just about as much to him at one point before all of the latest lunacy that just. Kept. Happening. Too.)

-And that stupid Glasses kept trying to talk at him! Why?!

"Is he bothering you, great witch? he was asked by one of his current teenaged attendants and, oh, how he had missed this. Humanity had used to know how to treat beings of pure energy who were greater than themselves, and actually gave them all of the good-great-and-terrible things...

"It's fine." Blue waved off. "'Adults' are idiots, more stupid than children. You know this. They don't respect you unless they think you can show them a show of force to beat them, and they challenge you whenever they think you are weak; and this one thinks I can't or won't do that, thinks that I just and only depend on my Sixer attending me here for anything of any worth as he sees it at all. -Let him stew in his own stupidity until it kills him. He will leave soon enough; I will see that this is so. There are plenty of things out there that will be happy to eat him, in the forest from whence that checkered fool came." Blue told them all in a somewhat 'indulgent' of the moronic idiot-fool who isn't civilized enough to show their betters the proper respect matriarchal (and somewhat-jaded, and completely unconcerned) drawl, to a few snickers of amusement from those other older children surrounding him, and a few winces and shudders from some others of the bunch.

(Far away, Miz was watching this and torn between laughing or being exasperated at Blue's teen-posse. Almost made her want to reveal herself to them, herself. To meet them in her dragon form, so they knew that she was the one who'd built their new home.)

Blue raised a mug into the air at this point, and stood up. He not-quite slammed down a foot on his chair (keeping it informal) as he turned in place, looking at all of them. Things quieted quickly, as all of the children elbowed each other and quieted, paying attention.

"A toast," Blue declared like a prophet, in an two-tone echoing voice that sounded like overlayed Spanish and English at the same time. He raised his mug farther up. "To your unseen benefactor, who made this place for you and yours as she could, wanting you to be safe and well. To eat good food, and drink cool water, and never go hungry or be hurt again."

"And teeth brushes! And soap!" One child cheered. "And warm showers!" Another child added.

"Yes," Blue agreed. "And all of those very-important things as well. Soft mattresses and warm showers and blankets. All the other things you need to stay clean and healthy. Good air and open spaces to play in. All of it, here. All of it, for you!" The demon enthused this out at them, then dropped his mug slightly, and held his mug straight out in front of him next, with a gleam in his eyes and a smile. "And a toast to those who would fight against those who looked down upon you as well, those who will spit in those bastards faces by helping you to help yourselves now, to live and grow and learn in safety, without fear."

"Blessings upon all you and them," Blue told them all next. And then his face darkened rather abruptly. "-And ONE THOUSAND CURSES upon the evil ones who called their laws 'just'. DEATH and DESTRUCTION and PLAGUES upon those who DARED to call you anything but good children before this. -I call you all 'good', and I salute you, and I curse every single last one of them, down to the ash that they deserve to be and will soon become, lost and forgotten as you move forward and spurn and spit on every last word they ever did dare to speak to you then." With that said, Blue turned his head and spat down at the ground like it was a ritual, then turned back towards the table, lifted his mug again and cried out "LIBERATION!" and then tipped his head back and downed the whole mug.

The new islanders all cheered, celebrating. They'd been in much of a shock for most of the morning, having been suddenly moved here. The 'Care Units' hadn't exactly explained anything to them at all - only told them that they were now safe here. But this great witch had come with tales to tell, explanations and wisdom and more. Gifts of trees and an assortment of all sorts of things they hadn't even realized they'd needed - extra shoelaces, and fishing line for fishing rods they could make of the nearby wood, and knives to carve those fishing rods with. Tools to cut down branches and trees, to make anything else they might need. People, who told them they would supply them with further goods even than that. Books, that told them how to make all sorts of things for themselves, what things in the forest they could eat, use, make into other things, and more. Dandelions, that had tasted so good in their salads; completely edible. Hemp, for the ability to make their own clothing. How to make salt from the sea, how to make 'natural toothpaste' of their own from other things there, and more things besides. And the 'doctors', both medical and scientific, had also come with their own supplies and explanations, their own more mundane things to share. The children were all a bit overwhelmed; they'd had to take on responsibility for each other in those cages, what little they could, but now instead of trying to subsist on and try to do what they could with scraps, now they were being given abundance, spanning from skyline to skyline, stretching out across their entire vision, everywhere that they could see. Now, they were being told they could do more - and their witch expected them to be able to do whatever they wanted to do with it, that they didn't have to rely on grownups anymore, or even talk to them if they wanted to do things on their own instead.

(Those who had their parents with them were grateful and relieved for that, but their parents had been torn away from them before, and that had left scars. They now knew on a bone-deep level that they couldn't rely on their parents to protect or shelter them anymore; their last wavering beliefs in that fallacy had now been thoroughly crushed. And the demon in their midst who had introduced himself to them as a witch had known that, and had told them in the old way of speaking to humans that he knew, that such a thing was not the end of their world or their lives, but instead a liberation - they would and could survive without them, they could even thrive without them, all by themselves if they had to, as long as they all had each other. While he'd had a good portion of them seeding the ground for him to perform his magic on, he'd been talking with and seeding things in them in return, with the magic of words. -Ideas. Ones that would potentially bloom sooner, rather than later.)

The adults were more grateful for the medical check ups, and more common supplies. They were still confused as to how this happened, but many had their faiths surge at the thought of some merciful god finally heeding their pleas. Those who were reunited with their children had thanked the skies, even as they weren't sure if this was really real. But those people in white uniforms coming in, while scary at first, had assured them that this was very real. And from what they'd been able to learn from some of the people in the white uniforms, they were going to be hidden here, on their paradise, where they could raise their children in peace. The people in the yellow uniforms who called themselves 'Care Units' were very helpful, tending to them since their move here, even if they spoke oddly.

This was more than any of them had ever dreamed they could have.

"Oh, and I almost forgot," their witch told them all, as he put the mug down again - on the table this time. "There may not be 'milk and honey' here, except there is! Of a sort." Blue stood away from the table, brushing himself off. "We also brought soybeans, from which you can make soy milk, and there are bee hives in the small forest also; I will show you where they are."

And with that both said, proclaimed, and noted, Blue turned and walked away, his 'honor guard' of older teenagers following in-tow. A lively discussion in Spanish started up again between Blue and his cohort as they began walking, Blue making small but expansive gestures with his hands as he (and they) went.

Fiddleford watched this all with an amused expression. "Hope there isn't going to be some Children of the Corn-type thing happening here," he joked, but he was a little worried. Dr. Poddar snorted into his own plate of vegetables. "More like Peter Pan or something. This is definitely some kind of Neverland."

The older Ford was eyeing Bill, watching him go, but he wasn't reaching for any of his weaponry.

"A valid concern on both fronts," the older Ford noted with a careful lightness himself, taking another quaff of lemon water from his own mug. "But Stan has assured me that Bill will not try to 'enlighten' or 'inspire' anyone until he has talked with Bill about... the most problematic aspects of the process of it that Bill has been commonly using for it, further." He set his mug down, and took his time standing up from the table. "That was actually very mild. For him. Even if it was incredibly subversive, divisive, and very much him," he added under his voice to them next, as he stood up and away from the table and walked off after Bill - not too quickly, not looking tense, not walking or moving in a way that would cause alarm. He nodded to a child or two, and smiled at them as he passed.

A few of the other scientists got up to follow, a bit curious about everything that was going down.

"Well, so… ah… who is that person anyway?" Dr. Poddar asked, as they walked. Fiddleford opened his mouth, and then closed it and shrugged. "A…"

"A demon named Bill Cipher," the older Ford told him (after he'd slowed down, to let the rest of them catch up to him, once he'd realized that they'd been doing that). "Don't talk with him too much; you'll go insane."

"Demons are real?!" Dr. Poddar twisted around to stare at the 'woman'.

"Yes." The older Ford looked puzzled at this, as he turned towards Fiddleford. "You didn't warn them?"

"No demons here after our own Bill was killed. We destroyed the portal, wasn't… wasn't supposed to be more…" Fiddleford frowned. "Didn't think there was another way in, really. Kinda… worried, a bit."

"Ah, yes," the older Ford said, with a wince. "Of course. And the two of the triplets never met any others out there," the man recalled next.

"Well, should be fine. We've got proper panic rooms now. Shielded against magic an' all that. And if all else fails, I could probably build another giant robot to beat them down." The mechanic shrugged. The other scientists were very confused. "Nevermind all that." Fiddleford told them.

"Unicorn hair, mercury, and moonstones in reserve?" the older Ford asked him quite seriously.

"Plenty. Especially after Xin and Ford went to visit the unicorns. They gave us a lot of their hair."

The other Ford grimaced. "I'd check the efficacy of that hair, if I were you, F."

"It's unicorn hair. Works too, according to Ford." Fiddleford blinked. "Course, we'd need to set the spell to react to any of the cryptids nearby to test it on them, but we're trying to establish good relations with them."

The older Ford grimaced slightly, but nodded at him once. "It might be better to set it up before you think you need it," the older Ford noted.

"...wouldn't that prevent Xin from coming to visit?" Fiddleford frowned, the dragon popped by every now and then to help Ford with his projects, would be rude to lock him out.

"There is a method for getting past it," the older Ford told him. "It restricts what can be done both magically and weirdly within the constraints that the method imposes, is my understanding. Both Bill and the man-eater know it; he taught it to her. -Having such a barrier up doesn't make being around them safe, just..." the older Ford grimaced at this slightly, then shook his head and let out a breath of a sigh.

"Oh… ok then. I guess it wouldn't be an issue to set up a barrier anyway." Fiddleford shrugged. (Man-eater?)

They caught up to the demon and his cohort of far younger 'charges' at his and Ford's backpacks at the edge of the field. The demon was drawing a map in the dirt with a stick, as two of the teens were pulling fine netting out of one of their backpacks.

Ford sighed. "You're not going to be able to keep those bees off of you by draping that netting over you like a Category 1 ghost finding a bedsheet," he sighed out a bit in exasperation (at Bill, mainly), heading for the large packs himself. "Let me get out the canvas sheeting and the proper sewing kits and needles-" (Bill began translating for him in the background of this.)

"We've got hazmat suits?" Fiddleford suggested.

"...That could work?" the older Ford said, looking up at him briefly. "Wouldn't the bee stings into the outside layers of it ruin it if it needed to be used for its original intended use later, though?"

"You're right…" Fiddleford frowned. "But we can buy more easily, giving up a few for the people here would be no issue."

The older Ford blinked at him.

"Ah. Yes." Ford straightened up a bit. It was clear that the idea definitely had not occurred to him, until Fiddleford had told it to him.

"We ARE here to give them any supplies that they don't have." The mechanic chuckled. "Dr. Rodriguez has been talking with them, and making a list of stuff. Some of them require medication, some need lotions and sunscreen. Anything else would be brought as they request them, or as we figure out that they needed it." (The older Ford sighed a bit out at this in relief. Fiiddleford had always been the practical one. Apparently, that was true in more than a few iterations of him, it was seeming.) Fiddleford looked around. "Whoever furnished this place, Xin or Miz, I'm not sure, didn't get everything." The older Ford frowned at this, and Fiddleford shrugged. "That's fine, we're here to get anything else that they'll need."

The older Ford didn't quite get a chance to ask him what he meant by 'Xin or Miz', though he supposed it didn't really matter which guise they were using when they had done it. Not before Fiddleford bid him farewell as he got back to work, heading back to the main lunch table area to talk to the people and the Care Units a bit more, before they themselves left for the moment - effectively, on a quick supply run.

And after a bit more explanation to the teenagers (and some hastily-made makeshift beekeeping outfits for a good two or three of them, depending largely on however adventurous that third one might be), Ford and Blue left the island-glade as well, shortly after Fiddleford's own contingent did.

(Ford wasn't exactly satisfied with the current state of affairs, to say the least, but trying to evacuate them from the glade would apparently put their lives in at least as much, if not more, immediate danger at-present. The fact that the entryway and exit seemed unrestricted... well, except for the 'large hill embankment' Bill pulled up around it before they left, which was more to prevent any direct rush from the front being able to be made in a raid-like fashion on the rest of the island, then actually restrict any on-foot motion completely. The way into and out of the newly-formed 'glade' here was reportedly stable and unrestricted, at least for now - even if he had to take Bill's unlying word for it. And the fact that the children and adults who were there seemed in far better spirits than he'd been expected, given their apparent sudden displacement… did say something, at least.)

(Ford didn't particularly like the look of the biologicals that the man-eater had apparently put in place, though - guarding and overseeing the entire location as if all the humans there were just cattle. But some caretaking was going to be necessary here for some time, given the somewhat dire physical straits of most of the people who had clearly been rescued from a far worse situation, as well as the child-to-adult ratio that was there currently; many of them had seemed to tire out rather quickly, as well as looking rather severely malnourished as well. This made it difficult for Ford to speak out against such measures directly.)

(He could only hope that the man-eater didn't decide on a whim to remove the opening to the outside world at any point - a move which would trap all of the current inhabitants inside, with a rather morbid effectiveness - and that this Fiddleford would be able to put in the time, energy, and money towards goods and supplies that would ultimately benefit them in a way that would allow them to live safely until they had recovered quite handily and were ready and willing to leave.)

Miz was playing with the kids after lunch. Diego wanted to learn more magic, so she was showing him some basic glyphs. Zoe and Zach were trying out some other 'spells' too. They had an easier time of it than Diego did, but that didn't deter him in his focus, drawing the symbols as carefully as he could, even with the lack of dexterity. He was still only a toddler after all.

The local Ford was wondering what to do about the impending math-off. "Should I really just forfeit?" he asked Miz. She nodded. "Would be better for you. Probably." Ford rolled his eyes. "Right." he sighed. Miz paused for a moment. "...sorry about Blue."

"I don't need you apologizing for him. It's not your fault he's the way he is." Ford sighed. "He's rather… tiring on the nerves," Ford said, having finally allowed himself to admit this. Miz paused in the middle of drawing another glyph. "You don't have to try so hard to get along with him." she told him.

"I still want to try." Ford sighed. "He's… not entirely horrible all the time, to everyone." he glanced over at the children as he said this. "So there is some good in him, somewhere," which was more than his own Bill had. So Ford wanted to give him a chance. He hadn't killed anyone here yet, and it didn't seem like he would… Ford frowned. That wasn't a very good way to rate someone.

There was a partial commotion of noise coming down the hallway from the direction of the pool room. The voices sounded like the older Ford and Blue, and-

"-the fact that she can abduct people via teleportation whenever she wants, is-"

"-HA! You think I can't do that, too?"

"-You don't particularly like being around random humans who you aren't in the process of playing with-" older Ford said in consternation, thoroughly distracted as he walked into the room with Blue, until he glanced around (as he usually did upon entering any room that he did, on reflex) and stopped cold for a moment. (Blue slowed to a stop rather more casually himself.) Older Ford was frowning at her.

Miz looked up with a very disgruntled, "I don't like how you always assume the worst of me," she said simply. "It hurts my feelings."

"I have no reason to trust you," older Ford said, "Given past behavior that I've seen out of you, and what you seem to think is hilariously funny," he said succinctly, trying to keep at least some of the specific problems he had with her out of direct mention, given the number of toddlers currently sitting in the room.

"When have I ever harmed children?!" Miz complained. "And pranks are not-" she took a deep breath. "My prank didn't actually physically harm anyone!" Ford was curious what this was about, but with the children here, he wasn't sure he should ask. Zach waved. "Hi mister Blue! Hi mister other Ford!"

"Greetings," the older Ford said, (clearly stowing what he'd been about to say to her in return, in deference to the very small children present, for the moment). Then he paused and asked, "Should I call you Zach or Zachary?" He'd not actually been formally introduced to him yet.

"Zach is fine," the boy grinned, (and Ford nodded to him once). "Zachery is only when mommy's mad because me an' Zoe are in trouble." ("Ah. Understood. Zach it is." older Ford said this as he began to walk over. Blue followed in some semblance of 'following', making his way over in his own sweet time as well.)

"What prank?" Zoe asked, setting the crumpled ball of paper on fire. Miz sighed. "I don't think you're old enough to hear about it."

"HA," said Blue. "You big sister made my Sixer think she ate a whole person! And then he thought she was going to eat him next. But he didn't stick around for the 'You've been Ker'pranked!' at the end there," Blue noted, with a grin. (Yes, he knew how to talk to-and-with children about ANYTHING, thank you, just fine!)

The twins giggled. "Did you swallow someone like a snake?" Zoe asked eagerly. Miz twitched. "Of course not. I-"

"-crunched them more like a gingerbread man," Blue explained, plopping down on the floor to sit down nearby them. "But the frosting wasn't frosting at all. Which made my Sixer panic a bit."

Zoe seemed absolutely delighted by this. Diego wrinkled his nose. "A real person?" he asked.

"A vessel, but Sixer can't tell the difference so easily, so he overreacted," Blue waved off with an eyeroll. (Older Ford was frowning at this, but the children didn't look worried, so he didn't attempt to stop him. Even if the imagery and descriptions were likely going to give he himself nightmares to that effect later…)

Zach frowned and then went over to tug on Stanford's pant leg. "Vessels aren't people. They're… they're like Miz's clothes." he told the man. "So it's ok, she didn't eat a person."

Blue's 'Sixer' sighed at this. "I'm aware she didn't eat a person now," the older Ford noted, as he crouched down a bit closer to Zach's level. He didn't look very happy though. "The problem I have with her is that she wanted to scare me with it, and she didn't stick around to explain any of it to me, later." And tried to let Bill take all the blame and the fallout from the whole mess of things later, which didn't speak well for what Bill was letting her get away with as 'his sister' here and elsewhere. "She isn't sorry for scaring me. She'll almost certainly try to do it again. She's done several other things to me since that make it quite clear that she rather likes it when I am feeling anything but calm or at peace, when I am around her."

Zach blinked. "So are you still mad that she pranked you?" he asked. ("Yes. She enjoys scaring me." And worse.) "Scaring you is mean," he nodded solemnly, turned to Miz and put his little hands on his hips. "Miz. You were being mean." Miz winced. "To be fair, it was Seb's idea. But it was my choice to do what he asked me to do. So, yeah, it was still my bad." She glanced at Stanford and then looked away. "Still don't know how to apologize properly for that."

Older Ford sighed and ruffled a hand lightly through Zach's hair. "Thank you for sticking up for me," older Ford told him as he dropped his hand. "But I'd rather you not…" get caught in the crossfire, except that ship had rather sailed with the man-eater's injection into their home, hadn't it. "...get into any fights with Miz about it, on my behalf. I am generally rather capable of handling things myself."

"Hah!" Zoe crowed. "We can beat Miz everytime!" she puffed out her chest proudly. "She's really bad at fighting." Miz rolled her eyes. "Curses, children, my only weakness," she deadpanned.

"My niblings have told me that tickling tends to be a weakness of Ciphers," older Ford offered up himself, with just a little bit of a (devious) sparkle in his eyes. ("AH! SIXER! -LIES!" went Blue, from where he was sitting cross-legged next to Diego.)

Miz went still. "I'm ticklish, yes. But that doesn't mean you're allowed to do that to me," she mock-scolded the twins.

"I do believe that the point of having an unfair means of subduing you, is to have such things available when you yourself are doing things that you are 'not allowed' to do," older Ford noted rather strictly himself. ("Sixer.")

"They can subdue me already," Miz complained. "They don't need to resort to tickling."

"Somehow, I doubt that," the older Ford said rather dryly right back. He then glanced over at Ford. "We should tackle the math challenge now. The talk I need to have with Blue afterwards is going to take some time," the older scientists said to him, as he pushed himself quite easily to his feet, "And I'd like to try and leave tonight, if at all possible."

Ford blinked. "Oh, right…" he stood up. "So… do I simply surrender or…?"

"HA!" went Blue, and older Ford shot him a look. "One minute," the older Ford said to Blue, as he pulled out Ford's phone and (after handling a few things with the apps they'd been using for odd jobs for money before) handed it (back) over to him. "I've added some notes and plans to your Journal app," older Ford told him, as Ford took the phone back from him. "Chief among them are several designs for monitoring and health devices that deal with the brain, for mental health purposes. -Passive sensing only, and they will need testing," older Ford warned him, "As well as some amount of fine-tuning. I've added in what I remember from my time in other dimensions, as well as instructions on the use of them, and the modified designs that should hopefully be possible with the state of technology as it is in your dimension here," older Ford explained to him next. "I hope that it's helpful." ("Very much so, thank you.")

"-Now," older Ford said next, turning to Blue. "I accept your request to act as referee for this math challenge that you posed to this Stanford Pines, that he accepted from you." (Blue started to grin.) The older Ford pulled in a breath, as he held his hands behind his back and said next, "This Stanford forfeits your challenge; no contest."

And now Blue was frowning, even as he got a sly and almost-nasty look in his eyes.

"Ah-ah-ah, Sixer," Blue said to him next, waggling a finger at him from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He was starting to grin almost nastily as he said next, "He doesn't just get to walk away with no consequences from this. He-"

"-will prostrate himself before you and apologize for attempting to steal your brussel sprouts," older Ford said thinly, even as he looked rather tense and looked over at Ford at this, with a 'I knew you weren't going to like this, but please go along with it anyway' look.

Ford twitched, his pride rearing up. "I wasn't trying to steal his-" and Miz slapped a hand over his mouth. "Fordsie is very sorry."

"Oh, that's HARDLY enough," Blue said next to the older Ford standing there. "He didn't just try to make a rather pathetic attempt at 'stealing' food away from me there." Blue turned his gaze on Ford next, and his pupils were slitted. "He thought he could get away with it later by actually winning this challenge of mine." Blue drew himself up to his full seated upright posture and said, "-He has to prostate himself before me, apologize for attempting to steal my brussel sprouts and mean it, AND admit that I'm smarter than he is and would have thoroughly beaten him like a damn rug in this math challenge. -He has to actually say the words," Blue said to him next, almost sneering it out at Ford next.

"I have no doubt you would." Ford said dryly. Miz gave his arm a little smack. "Fordsie!"

"-and at least say it enough 'like he means it' that I actually believe that he might actually mean it," Blue added next, crossing his arms as he glared over at him sideways, not letting him off the hook for one second, as far as he saw things playing out here. (Because Blue believed that there was no way in hell that this six-fingered Stanford here would ever say such a thing to him. Never. His pride would never let him even so much as utter the words at him, out of his mouth.)

Older Ford clenched his jaw, then turned to Ford and let him know, under his breath, that... "I know this isn't ideal, and I would have great difficulty doing this myself, but I highly suggest that you take this. It is an incredibly mild demand, given what he could be asking for instead."

Ford sighed, turned to face Blue and (after being prodded by Miz, a lot of prodding by Miz) bowed his head with a, "I'm very sorry for withholding the brussel sprouts from you. And you would have utterly trounced me in the math challenge, seeing as you're over a trillion years old and incredibly brilliant and smart. Much smarter than me."

"Without qualifiers," Blue said evenly, eyes narrowing at this. "I am more intelligent, wise, and smarter than you in every way. PEROID. Full end-stop. -I was smarter than you at your age, and I'm smarter than you still. Say it. Like. You MEAN it."

"You're smarter than me now, then, and in the future." Ford barely managed to keep the sarcasm from his tone, though that might have been because Miz was sullenly poking his side. ("What?" "I don't want brother mad at you." "He's always mad." "...you know what I meant!")

"Think about it, and then say it like you actually mean it. Because unless you're a complete MORON, you should have noticed by now that it's true. Except you haven't noticed that yet. Not least of which because you know I'm a triangle," Blue drawled out at him next almost snidely, arms crossed, and older Ford tensed a bit (unconsciously reaching for his left pocket) as he could see the growing rage in Bill's eyes that he was just barely holding himself back from unleashing on this Ford and...

Ford sighed. "I do know it's true." (He did, really. Bill Cipher was brilliant, more intelligent than anyone he's ever met. And Ford was so angry about it because the demon seemed to waste all his intellect and power for things like terrifying, terrorizing, and just being a huge dick to people. Except maybe his brothers' youngest children, sometimes. It was a shame this Bill, and Ford's own Bill, couldn't be more like Miz.) "I just don't like admitting it. And you being a triangle has nothing to do with it. You, as an entity, are smarter than me. You know so much more than I do, you've had much more time to learn, and you can hold conversations with yourself on par and above any intellectual debate team that has ever existed." (Older Ford turned and blinked at him at this last one. And Blue himself...)

Blue blinked at this. And he slowly seemed to settle a bit in place where he sat, the tension draining out of his shoulders and posture a bit as he stared at this local Ford here from only a few feet away.

And then Blue frowned at him and leaned forward a bit, peering at him with slightly squinted eyes, searching...

...and Blue leaned back a bit at this, looking slightly… fidgety? And a little... expressionless? (Because Blue hadn't been expecting that at all. No, not even a little. Lip-service, maybe if he'd been actually physically brow-beaten into it by multiple people, but…)

(Blue hadn't used his 'looking-eye' spell on him for it, checking it, but beyond that whole aspect of things, he didn't think this Ford of Seb's was only paying lip-service to him, he actually didn't seem to be lying(...!?) - which was DISTURBING and off-putting to Blue. It left Blue feeling a little off-balance and nonplussed, just a bit.)

Older Ford pulled in a breath. "That should be sufficient." Blue didn't argue, or even look like he was going to say anything, for several long seconds. "-No objections raised. The forfeit has been given. The math challenge has ended," older Ford said, letting out a breath of relief (at least for this one thing he'd managed to help this other version of him pull off). "-Bill, I need to talk with you out in the pool room," he said with a very different sort of tension in him, next.

"-Guest room," Blue corrected, as he still was looking at Ford, "Then we'll leave from the pool room, as I clean up all-that-after." Then he moved his gaze up to his Sixer. "If you want to leave right after we talk, I should be taking down the protections I put up in there anyway. It also had a door that can be closed, and is almost mostly soundproof," Blue added next, as he pushed himself to his feet. "-Little sis, maybe show Diego a few of the 'animatory' glyphs, would you? For levitation of small-objects, and liquids within the sphere, among other things?" he added, as he started off. (Miz nodded, settling the kids down for some more magic practice.)

Older Ford didn't argue, just walked off after Blue, in large strides that caught up to him quickly. They exited the room in short order. (This older Ford wasn't looking forward to discussing other dimensions and how many times Bill had been other people he hadn't recognized in any more detail than they already had, very briefly - something that would almost certainly come up again, knowing Bill. He also wasn't looking forward to having to try and ask exactly what Bill was planning on doing to Stan's twin brother, in order to 'get rid of' him, what his plans were moving forward. He certainly didn't think he'd find himself 'liking' it any more than he had that conversation with Bill he'd had, right before Bill had brought 'Ford back the next day.)

"Well. That happened." Ford said slowly as he watched the two leave. Miz shrugged. "You actually managed to surprise him. That's kinda neat," she commented. Ford brightened at that. "Do you think he likes me?"

Miz let out a "HAH!" as she tilted her head back to stare at him. "Brother doesn't like pretty much anyone and everyone."

Zach frowned, scooting over to press against Miz's side. "Does he not like you?"

Miz pet Zach's fluffy hair. "Brother loves me. That's different."

"Why does he love you?" Zach asked next. "Because I'm his sister."

"And… does Blue like us?" Diego asked slowly. Miz blinked. "Well, I think he does. I mean, you're all so clever and good at making terrible cookies." she grinned. "And you know he's smart and listen when he's trying to teach you. He likes that a lot." The children seem quite pleased with this news.

"Now who wants to learn a magic circle spell that I invented?" Miz asked. """Oooh! Me! Meeee!""" all three kids cheered.

Blue and the older Ford left largely without fanfare. -They almost 'snuck out' on them all, in fact. If Miz hadn't been paying attention to when they left the guest room for the pool room...

She went in, while the rest of the Pines were getting their belongings packed for the trip to Jersey. So there was no one in this wing of the house except her and these two. "Brother?"

"Yes, little sis?" Blue said, as he finished taking down the last vestiges of protections he'd put in place in the area around the deck chair that were here.

"Um…" Miz shifted her weight between her legs. "Do you…" she started before she changed her mind. "I love my new human family," she told him instead.

"Yes?" said Blue, turning towards her, "What's your point?" (Ford was looking over at her now, even as he was trying to steel himself for whatever Bill was actually going to do to him next, here and now, and potentially even on the way back.)

"Do you…" Miz was a little afraid to ask. "Do you… approve of them?"

Blue blinked at her. "Define: approve," he said to her.

"Do you like them, or… are you okay, with me… being with them?" Miz wasn't going to leave them, regardless of what Blue said, but she wanted to know how he felt about it all.

"They are all dead-set on dying and leaving you alone again," Blue told her. (Miz winced.) "So, no." He paused for a moment. "If they change their minds about that, and want to stay with you forever, and won't decide differently-again after that, then… we'll see." And that was all the allowance that he was willing to give on that front, given her suicidal tendencies and how she generally reacted to the idea of people she was 'friends with' or 'sister to' dying, let alone the actual reality.

That was honestly more than she'd hoped for, from him. "I'm not going to force them to stay with me." Miz told him firmly.

"Free Will is a thing, yes," Blue told her. "That does not mean that explaining what it would actually be like to remain with you is an option that is not open to you. -Educate them," Blue told her. "Though be careful about push-back from Seb. You may need to start with him, first," Blue warned her next. After all, Seb was the Bill Cipher in charge of fixing things here.

"Seb wants to live as a human." Miz started, "And this is his 'set. So I respect his decision."

"And he is looking to build a 'brain trust' of people, on what-all should be fixed, and how, and why," Blue reminded her. "He does not yet have the understanding on how to gather his own knowledge properly. Not yet," Blue reminded her. "He is still needing to work on that from his own bracer; why would you withhold your own knowledge from him, when he simply hasn't thought to ask yet?" Blue shrugged instead.

Miz kept quiet about how she was pretty sure Seb wasn't going to be 'fixing' anything here in the way her brother would want, or think was something that should be done. Seb wanted people to live and die like a regular part of the cycle. And Miz was terrified of what would happen once her family all left her again, but… she resolved to treasure her time with them while she still could. (She kept even more quiet about how she didn't believe brother's idea for 'fixing' things would work. Not here at least. This 'set wasn't a Game inside some Matrix-like universe. And while her brother's 'set was just as real and valid as this non-game world, his 'set ran on certain Rules, and they were easier to change than things here were. Or even back in her own 'set. Hell, even Ax didn't have full control over everything.)

And Blue, for his part, kept quiet on how he was very sure that he'd have to be coming back here later and, once Seb was done with him 'sitting back and taking notes', then begging him in rather short order for his own help and expertise. To actually fix all the things that Seb himself had 'dropped the screaming head' on, so to speak. -It was fine. At least Seb was actually going to be trying; he'd said that he would be to him. And why would he lie about that to another Bill Cipher, one who was also ostensibly another version of him?

(Blue didn't realize, or think to realize, that 'lying to himself' was something that Bill Ciphers were actually quite good at. He certainly didn't think a 'me-who-is-also-me' would do that to him, because he would never do that to a 'me-who-is-also-me' himself. Not intentionally, and not as he defined what lying was, anyway. Because he would never think of lying to himself. He never did it himself - not intentionally - for a reason. Because-)

"Bill," older Ford said next. "It's time to go. I want to go home." (And at that, Blue felt something settle in him a bit, along his own connection-to-his-'puppet's 'string'. Not just because Sixer's reference and meaning there had not only been clear, but because Sixer had said that oh-so-absolutely unthinkingly to him now, of the dimension that Stanley was in.)

Miz opened her arms. "One quick hug for the road?"

Blue tilted his head at her a bit. Then he opened his arms wide at his sister's request. (Apparently, his little sister wanted hugs at exits, as well, when she was present in close proximity to his physical location when visiting the same dimension nearby.)

Miz walked over a bit closer, wrapped her arms around him, and relaxed. "See you again," she said. Because 'goodbye' wasn't the word here.

"Yes," Blue said brightly, returning the hug very carefully, very lightly. Not squeezing. "I will see you again. And you will see me again, too. We will both see each other again, at the same time, in the same 'set, many times yet, forever-again."

And shortly after that, they were pulling away from each other. And…

Stanford was getting shoved out of his vessel. Blue was kicking himself up out of his own vessel, disintegrating both down to less than ash. The Door to the Void of Doors slammed open, then closed again, as Blue 'grabbed' his six-fingered hand up, and rushed them both in and through it.

It all happened in rapid succession, nearly instantaneously. Hardly enough time for a human being to have been able to catch their bearings as to what was going on in the least, even if they'd had time and experience in moving through the general Mindscape - which this Ford did not.

And Miz stood there for a while, before she turned to go and help everyone pack.

The rest of the Pines had different feelings about Miz's brother being gone. Most were relieved. ("No offence Miz, but your brother is a bitch." Dillon told her quite bluntly. Miz sighed. "He's… very abrasive…")

Stan was worried about that older Ford. Being around Blue wasn't… well, it can't have been good. And he was probably going to be around him back home too. He hoped the Stanley that was there would be able to take care of him. God knows that Stanford needed it.

...of course, Stan also found a pile of cash in the guest room (determined to be set aside by both Blue and older Ford prior to their 'for the glade' purchases, as money that was meant for that purpose, and not to be spent on anything else). Stan pocketed it without issue. Free money!

Kari was worried for both of them. They were both such broken children, she hoped they would be able to get the help they needed to heal. She didn't like the fact that they'd both seen no issue with sleeping out on the streets to begin with, as if that was somehow normal for them both. And the way that they fought with each other, and tried to depend on absolutely no-one else around them was...

Well, she found herself grateful and relieved that not only was her Sebastian no longer out on the streets, but that he had taken Miz in. The idea of sweet little Miz being out there with no one but her friends (who were great people, sure, but they weren't parents) to take care of her worried Kari immensely.

Not to mention that, for all that Miz loved her Friends, they were still somewhat reliant on her to take care of them. Even if they didn't consciously realize it. But Kari had noticed, during that one time she'd met them, that the house they lived in was created by Miz, the very fact that they lived there already put them under Miz's care and protection. But where had that left Miz? She needed someone to care for her too. Not just in the sense of loving her, but in being able to support her, to let her know that they would be the one to ensure Miz's needs were met without having to do it all herself.

That was what being a parent means. And Kari was proud of Sebastian and Wanda for taking Miz on.

Kari only hoped they could continue to raise Miz properly, and instill in her a proper sense of the world and how to interact with it. She hoped Miz could learn how to rely on others instead of trying to go at it alone, like that older version of Ford had done.

...and then the family were set to leave for Jersey after just another day.

Here's hoping their summer would be a relaxing one.

God knows everyone needed it.