Talus Falls
"Ah, summer break. A time for leisure, recreation, and taking her easy. ...Unless you're me. My name is Dipper. The girl about to puke is my sister, Mabel. You're probably wondering what we're doing on a spider-horse being chased by a being even more horrific than typical on the Boiling Isles … Rest assured, there's a perfectly logical explanation." — Dipper Spines, Three Years Previous
Dipper Spines's eyes fluttered open as the remnants of his dream, wrought from memories, floated away like ink down a river. He groaned and massaged his forehead, his fingertips brushing the birthmark that resembled the Greater Dipper constellation, the source of his nickname. He'd heard tell that the Human Realm had a similar constellation, but had laughed it off as too great a coincidence.
With that, Dipper sat up and threw a pillow at his sister Mabel to wake her up before dressing in his usual short sleeved yellow-brown tunic over olive tights and cinched with a leather belt, with leather greaves to protect his wrists. Now fully dressed, Dipper glanced at his sister, who still hadn't moved. He quirked a grin as an idea came to mind.
Dipper lifted a hand to eye level and traced a quick but smooth motion with his index finger, his fingertip leaving a trail of light-blue magic that formed a small circle. With an effort of will and the magic of his circle, Mabel's sheets closed around her like the petals of a Beast Trap Flower before lifting and dropping her to the boards of their attic room.
"Gah, alright, I'm up …!" Mabel groaned as she extricated herself from her sheets. She flipped her curly brown hair, a longer mirror to his own brown curls, back away from her face and blew him a raspberry. "You know I'm gonna get you back for that, Bro-Bro," she said with a mischievous grin.
"And I'm sure it'll be loud and obvious, just like all of your magic," Dipper shot back before heading down the stairs. He hopped down the last few at ground level of his great uncles' house and into the simple kitchen to find "Grunkle" Stan at the stove cooking his famous "stan-cakes" while Great Uncle Ford sat at the table, poring over one of his new journals embossed with a silver six-fingered hand with a quill pen.
Ford was dressed in his usual emerald tunic and dark trousers, with an ankle-length hooded brown robe hanging open from his shoulders and closed at the waist with a sturdy belt. A medallion resembling a narrowed eye hung from a cord over his sternum, a powerful artifact he had picked up on his travels throughout the Demon Realm.
Grunkle Stan was dressed in his usual black three-piece suit with iron pauldrons on his shoulders, his leather dress boots shined to a polish and a red cravat contrasting the otherwise dark color scheme. A red fez marked with the symbol of the Order of the Mackerel sat on his head, as it almost always did, and his left eye was covered by his distinctive eye patch.
"Good morning, Dipper," Ford said jovially, looking up from his text just long enough to smile at him before returning to it.
"Mornin', kid," Stan greeted, not looking back from breakfast but still giving a thumbs up in his general direction.
Dipper smiled a bit and settled at the table, a quick spell circle summoning a book on crafting advanced abominations for him to look over while Stan finished up. "Where's Soos?" he asked, keeping an ear open for Stan's reply and devoting the rest of his focus to his summer studies.
"Probably spending the morning with his new missus," Stan replied, a hint of pride underneath his gruff tone. Anyone who knew Stan knew he approved of Melody and had fully supported his former-handyman's relationship in his own gruff way. "What you got planned, sport? Still sticking to your sticky friends?" He cackled as Dipper glared at his back from behind his book.
"Not my abominations, if that's what you mean," he commented. "Just hanging with Mabel and her sticky friends."
"My pointy ears are burning!" Mabel singsong-shouted, sliding on her thick socks into the kitchen and dressed in her typical dark skirt, flat dress shoes and any number of woven sweaters; today's selection bore a stylized image of the Beastkeeper Coven symbol, though the hatched swine wore a large smile. "What are we talking about?"
"Plans for the day," Dipper deflected, eyes glinting as he looked over a table of advanced abominations. Burning abomination, acidic abomination, stone abomination …
"Well I hope those plans involved you and me meeting up with Candy, Grenda, and Pacifica after breakfast," Mabel said with a smile. "The town's marketplace isn't gonna ransack itself!"
"You make it sound like we're gonna steal everything," Dipper deadpanned, closing his book with a sharp snap.
"Don't have to!" Mabel cried joyously. "Pacifica said she's covering everything! Something about a 'welcome back' gesture."
Dipper felt the pink staining his cheeks and the points of his ears at the mention of a certain heiress and tried to force it away with sheer willpower. He half-considered casting a quick glamour illusion to hide it, but knew Mabel would catch on. Maybe Great-Uncle Ford could help him polish his illusions to make them more subtle than in a burst of light-blue mist?
"Well, whatever you two do today, remember to keep your heads down," Ford commented, not looking up from his book. "If my math is right, the Emperor's Coven will be sending their next raid any day now."
"Oy, those friggin' guard dogs," Stan growled, passing out stacks of stan-cakes before settling in and sipping his apple blood. "'Elite force' my tukus," he cackled. "They couldn't catch us if we jumped in front of 'em and waved our arms screaming, 'Hey losers! We're right here!'"
"So why don't you do that?" Dipper asked with a faint grin around a bite of his breakfast.
"No one likes a smart mouth, kid," Stan grumbled before shoving a large part of his own breakfast into his mouth and chomping moodily, to everyone's good humor.
After a few more minutes in silence, the younger twins finished their meals and began gathering things for their walk to town. Mabel noticed Dipper sliding the training wand that Ford had gifted him the previous summer for their lessons into a sheathe under his tunic, as well as the dusting of pink on his cheeks, and she grinned widely. "Ooh, are you learning an illusion from Pacifica?" she asked.
Dipper's lips tightened a bit in embarrassment at being caught and he cast a glance at Ford, who also seemed interested in his answer, though apparently out of nothing more than simple curiosity. "If you must know, she's gonna help me make illusory copies of my abominations to confuse people," he admitted.
"Sounds like a nice little arrangement," Mabel said with a teasing lilt to her voice. "A little teacher-student action, huh?" If she hadn't gotten her braces taken off earlier in the year, her wide grin would no doubt have been blinding.
"Well, I personally am proud of Dipper for learning from his peers," Ford said pointedly, nominally addressing Mabel. "It is never a bad idea to learn from multiple sources, and while I consider myself learned in the field of illusion magic it never hurts to consult a specialist."
"You think a fifteen-year-old counts as a specialist?" Stan asked, his words almost dripping with sarcasm.
"Miss Northwest is a bright young lady who has certainly had the finest private instructors money can buy in her chosen field," Ford refuted. "I'm more than certain that Dipper could do far worse than to learn from her."
"Speaking of," Dipper interjected, "we'd better get moving if we wanna get to the diner on time. C'mon, Mabel," he soldered his knapsack, "let's get moving."
"You got it, Bro-Bro," Mabel said, casting a spell circle of bright pink magic. The circle dissolved and heralded the squealing of Mabel's beloved schvine demon, Waddles, who raced into the kitchen at his master's summons. Dipper rolled his eyes with a faint grin as he grabbed his green cloak and they left the Shack, thinking not for the first time that Mabel was a natural at the Beastkeeping track at St. Epiderm.
As the twins began making their way from the outskirts of the Outer Foot toward the small town of Talus Falls, so named because it was situated on the talus of the Titan's foot and in front of the waterfall that fell from the upper reaches of its extended toes and settled into a lake before running off back into the Boiling Seas, both of them looked up at the distant sight of the massive waterfall. The ever-present muted roar of the falls was a familiar and comforting backdrop to their summers here.
As they continued walking, Dipper took the chance to shade his eyes from the rising sun and glimpse the distant shape of the Knee. Last summer, their great uncles had taken them there to practice their spells in the rich natural magic of the area, just like the witches of old. He hoped that they could do it again this year.
After about fifteen minutes of walking — Mabel making her customary lighthearted complaint for a staff to fly the distance that she made every time they walked there — the distinctive ridged trunks of spine trees and the red birches dotted with eye shapes thinned to reveal the town itself. Talus Falls was a semi-planned collection of beaten brick and wood buildings with cobbled streets filled with potholes. The people who lived here were odd, strange, and sometimes even downright bizarre even for the Boiling Isles.
And the Spines twins loved the town with all their hearts.
After a few more minutes of walking through town, the twins came upon their favorite restaurant in town, Greasy's Diner, next to the stump of a massive tree. By the door stood a familiar group of three witchlings their age.
Candy was blind to the world as she wrote in a small notebook, occasionally adjusting her glasses. She was still the shortest of them all, dressed in her typical green-striped, long-sleeved tunic that hid the dark skirt beneath and her black flats. Even from this distance, one could see the grey discoloration of her left, non-dominant arm, a metal prosthetic she had developed herself. Though her parents had placed her in the Bard track at the local school, her friends knew she harbored a love of the Healing track, and that she went to Ford for lessons on occasion.
Grenda was as massive as ever, in both frame and proportions, which supported the rumor that she had demon blood in her somewhere. Her shirt was as pink as could be, slightly off-setting her somewhat masculine appearance, and her pants were tough for moving through the woods, as were the heavy boots she wore. Her trademark lizard, her tie to the Beastkeeping track much like Waddles was to Mabel, was draped over her shoulders in a lazy embrace as it snored away. Only the rest of the group knew she dabbled in Construction magic, too.
Finally, Pacifica was flexing her fingers to trigger the lavender spell circle around her wrist, each movement changing her nails into illusionary alternative styles — from flames, to tentacles, to talons — occasionally smiling at a particularly grandiose choice before moving on. She was dressed in a favorite outfit, a purple dress with laces at the neckline and the hem cut in an embrasure pattern cinched with a black belt, a darker purple hip-length cloak clasped with a silver chain that artfully contrasted her voluminous platinum hair, black tights and dark leather, knee-high boots.
"Hey guys!" Mabel shouted, her actions as uninhibited as ever.
The trio all looked toward them and smiled. Grenda lifted Candy up on her shoulder and tackled Mabel in a three-way hug, while Dipper calmly maneuvered out of the way and approached Pacifica. He tried to will away the blush that was no doubt rising on his cheeks while taking note of the pink dusting her own as icy blue eyes met warm brown.
"Hey, Pacifica," Dipper said, rubbing the back of his neck as butterflies seemed to flit in his belly.
"Hi, Dipper," she replied. Her small, warm smile suddenly faded into a look of faint annoyance as she glanced over his shoulder. "You might wanna see this," she noted. Dipper glanced backward to find his sister and her first friends from the Falls watching them with almost frightening intensity, like those awful soap operas their Mom watched on the crystal ball back home.
"Don't mind us," Mabel said, waving her hand before returning it to cover her lips.
"We wouldn't want to interrupt a heartfelt reunion," Candy added.
"WE'RE NOT EVEN HERE!" Grenda said in her typical unthinking shout. "...WAIT A SEC, ARE WE EVEN HERE?"
"Let's just go, dorks," Pacifica said loftily, turning on her heel to lead the way. Dipper rolled his eyes and followed, as did the others. After a few minutes, the quintet arrived at the sprawl of wood and stone shops interspersed with stands and tents that was the Talus Falls Market. Hawkers declared their wares, animals cried out, and potential patrons chattered with all of it blending to form a unique haze of background noise.
"Okay," Mabel said as she slowly turned in place to view as much of the market as possible. "A big part of me wants to know if any new stores opened, where they are, and what they sell." Pacifica smirked at that, a familiar spark in her eyes that only shopping could bring out. "But first things first," Mabel continued with a finger in the air that reached out toward a sweets shop. "SUGAR!"
And with a battle cry of that most vaunted and sacred word, she led the charge toward the confectionaires.
Far from the sleepy town, a figure in a white cloak let the image of five teenage witchlings vanish from her Oracle sphere, the wraith bound to the sphere retreating into its depths with a relieved hiss. The figure stood and looked toward the peaks of the Outer Foot as a curtain of snow white hair fell to her shoulders and framed a face with three pale blue eyes.
"Lieutenant Iris," a masculine voice called. Iris slipped her helmet, the curve-beaked emblem of an agent of the Emperor's Coven, over her head. "What have you seen of our targets?"
The figure who had spoken was tall and leanly built, the beak of his own helmet not hiding his chiseled jaw just as the piece itself did not contain his long, auburn hair. Iris knew that his white cloak hid a pin of the blue bandaged hand of the Healing Coven to indicate his specialty and the double star pin of his rank of captain.
"They have entered the marketplace, Captain O'Leander," she replied. "What little I could See of the shack indicates that the greater targets will not leave for the day."
"Why do we not storm the tiny house and just take them ourselves?" asked a third agent of the Emperor's Coven. This one was built of massive proportions, his tall frame almost square with muscle, his voice low and gravelly to match. "They are two old men, a foolish manchild, and his weak potioneer wife. Even the children should have no chance against us, members of our Emperor's elite."
Silence reigned for a moment before the captain flicked a finger at their companion. "Lieutenant, perhaps you might show the corporal what you have Seen of our elite coven's previous attempts at such a strategy?"
Iris carefully hid her smirk before lifting her Oracle sphere in her left hand. The wraith emerged and hissed at the corporal before twisting in on itself and reforming into a flat plane that revealed visions of the past. One vision showed a small team of Emperor's guards led by a single agent of the coven charging the "Mystery Shack" before they were batted aside by the horns of a massive goat. The creature bleated at the trespassers, its size making the sound seem more like an undulating war horn.
Another vision showed another unit of guards in their straight conical helmets being smashed aside by a strapping older witch in a black suit and pauldrons, a large club propped over his shoulder and his hands darkened into stone with Construction magic. "Anyone else want a piece?!" the old man shouted before taking out another wave of guards.
A final vision showed another old witch, his appearance almost identical to the first but for a cleft chin and sideburns, and his physique a bit narrower than the other, spinning a staff lit with ice-blue magic into a powerful spell circle. He slammed the butt of his staff to the ground and the circle multiplied into a dozen smaller — though still large — circles that erupted into spears of white lightning. Where the lightning struck still more guards, it arced between them in a chain of devastation; where they struck the ground, massive fists of abominations erupted and struck or grabbed at them; where they exploded in the air, pillars of swirling wind tossed guards like ragdolls.
"Does this answer your question, Corporal Tusk?" the captain asked neutrally.
"Yes sir," Tusk answered meekly, shrinking in on himself.
"Excellent," O'Leander said, his tone implying he meant it. "And the fact that entire battalions of our Emperor's guards were defeated so consistently isn't even the worst part. It's that none of them even remember the events."
"They what?" Tusk asked.
"Honestly, Corporal," Iris spat, "didn't you read the dossier on this mission?"
"It would seem," the captain continued without a hitch, "that one of these wild witches has found a way to selectively remove memories. It's not an amnesia spell, as it lacks the distinctive magical marks of destroying memories. Nor is it a potion effect or our own potioneers would have been able to counter it. Whatever they do, our infirmary's tests indicate the memories were taken somehow, directly from their minds."
"Which makes it difficult to plan against them if we don't have reports of their tactics," Tusk added.
"Quite so," O'Leander commended. "And it doesn't help that some force surrounding the town makes searching out the future here … how did you describe it, Lieutenant?"
"Like peering through a glass of rancid milk at dusk instead of a bank of fog," Iris grumbled.
"Indeed," O'Leander said. "The glimpses we just saw were all she could find of the coven's previous efforts. Which is why the Emperor has decided on a different approach. Rather than brute force, we will target these wilders' … unique vulnerabilities."
"Kids," Tusk chuckled. "They seem to be everyone's weak point." All three of them had been present for the duel between Lilith Clawthorne and the Owl Lady mere weeks ago, and had been there to hear Emperor Belos decree that Eda would be spared. And so with one public enemy number one bumped down the list, it seemed that these two, Stanford and Stanley Spines, had gotten an upswing in priority.
Captain O'Leander summoned his staff, the eagle palisman spreading its wings. "Now then, we shall discuss tactics on the way." As he mounted his staff, his subordinates summoned theirs and did the same. "Hail Emperor Belos," he intoned before kicking off the ground and speeding toward the Outer Foot. The others mimicked his words and actions, and the three flew toward the first phase of their mission.
Wendy Corduroy hefted an axe on her shoulder, wiping the sweat from her brow and catching her breath. She glanced back at her dad and the rest of the timberjack crew that were doing their work. One of the crew cast a circle that urged on a schvine demon, one far larger and hairier than Mabel's pet Waddles, to roll the trunk of the tree she had just felled.
With a practiced movement, Wendy drew a light-green spell circle the size of her hand before clapping it to the ground with her palm, the magic of the circle spreading to one of the innumerable acorns spread out in the forest and speeding its growth until a fully grown tree stood before her. With a nod of self satisfaction, she prepared to fell this one too.
Few cared to learn that the Outer Foot of the Boiling Isles was uniquely suited to Plant magic. One could deduce it from the size of the trees that grew in the area if they thought about it, but few who lived outside the area did. Mabel had once wondered if it was like the Titan growing foot hair, and Wendy had laughed herself into a fit of hiccups at the innocent, quirky comment.
As Wendy began her quick, rhythmatic strikes against the trunk with her axe, she mentally counted down another day. As per regulations, each timberjack team spent three or four days in the peaks of the Foot and then the rest of the week back in town. Apparently the higher-ups thought it was more efficient to have the teams only travelling for part of two days than five if they just went home every night.
What that meant for her was that it was one more day until she could be back in the Falls to hang out with Dipper and Mabel. When she'd turned eighteen earlier in the year, her dad had offered her an official job in his timberjack team. He'd made the not-unreasonable point that she was getting too old for the Mystery Shack and its "wonders of the human realm" unless she were committed to making it a career. Which, as much as she loved working under Soos, she was not.
And so she'd taken up her dad's offer. Overall, it hadn't been that bad. Sure, it was tough work, kinda dangerous, and she spent most of her time literally out of town. But it was never boring and it was the kind of work she had been born and raised for. Rumor had it that her great-great-whatever grandpappy had been married to an actual forest demon, so, heck maybe she had literally been born for it.
As she felled the tree and prepared to grow another, she huffed a laugh at the thought of her two favorite people in the world. She just hoped they didn't get into any trouble while she was gone.
Who thinks the characters of Gravity Falls would be awesome in the setting of the Boiling Isles of the Owl House? ME! I do! That's why I'm churning this out. If you like it so far, leave a review!
*Dipper and Ford are basically dressed in their getup from "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons" during Probabilator's "real-life edition". As for Stan and Mabel, I tried to adapt their canon clothes to the psuedo-high fantasy style of the Boiling Isles.
*In my mind, the school of St. Epiderm, which was referenced by Willow in "The First Day," is located on the side of the Titan's skull. Dipper and Mabel live with their parents on one of the arms and attend there.
*This series was originally going to be called 'Greater-Foot" Falls, as it is kinda like "Gravity" but I settled on this instead. The 'talus' is a part of the foot opposite the ankle, and in this the Titan's left leg is just a strip of land above the boiling sea that ends in a small mountain of its foot. We never saw the Titan's other foot, so it gave me a place to work with. The town is named so because that's where it is, just below the incline of the Titan's raised foot.
*I've taken liberties with how certain branches of magic on the Boiling Isles work, because we don't have a whole lot of details on tracks/covens as of the first season. So I got creative - which I loved doing!
Let me know what you think! This story is complete in my archives and will have two more chapters and a short-ish epilogue, so be prepared for more. And may your own inspiration flow freely!