All's Faire in Love
The whole thing was the brainchild of Herman Puttnam, owner of the Gravity Falls Royal Discount Putt Hutt—the mini-golf course where Dipper and Mabel had once encountered the Lilliputtians, who were lousy at interpersonal relations but had no equal at handling balls.
Anyway, Herman had learned of cosplaying and festivals and such—one annually turned the Clackamas County Fairgrounds into a Scottish vale—and, since the mini-golf course was surrounded by a faux castle wall, he thought, "That might goose business."
So one summer—the summer the Pines twins were sixteen, in fact—Herman and his partner in, not crime, but, um, enterprise, Stanley Pines, arranged for the venue devoted to Woodstick every August to become a Ren Faire for two weeks in late June-early July. Mabel got sucked in early—those fancy 1500s-style outfits made her crafty fingers itch for stitches. Dipper and Wendy mostly ignored it, having concerns of their own that year.
But beginning on June 22 and running on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until July 2, Ye Olde Renaissance Festival and Golf Tourney could hardly be ignored. The "Golf Tourney" bit referred to a once-a-day event when, instead of using horses and lances, the knights would joust with putters and balls. At the Putt Hutt, of course. At their own expense. The winner would, on the second and last Saturday of the tourney, be crowned King of Albion Minor, the fictional kingdom.
"You gotta go!" Mabel nagged Dipper and Wendy.
"Eh, I'm not so much about dressin' up in clothes that make me look like an overdecorated cake," Wendy said.
"I won't wear anything that includes a codpiece," Dipper said firmly.
"Oh, pleeeease!" said Mabel. "I made these just for you. Wendy, look—you'll be Princess Wendifor. Ooh, just check it out—cream satin underdress! Matching brocade bodice! Emerald-green gown, so lovely! Tulle petticoat under it all! Daring ruffled white tanga panties and white fishnets! Brocade head piece with gauze veil and a tiara!"
"What was that about the fishnets and panties?" Dipper asked.
Wendy gave him a glance. "Dude, seriously?"
"Wondering about authenticity," he said innocently.
"If I go for this," Wendy asked Mabel, "what have you got planned for Dip?"
"Ooh, so planned!" Mabel said, whipping out a garment bag. "Dipdop's gonna love this. Behold!"
His started with a peasant shirt, V-neck, laces instead of buttons ("But you'll wear them untied," Mabel advised). Then a light-blue doublet, embroidered with pine-tree symbols in green, and hose—
"Panty hose?" howled Dipper.
"Man-ty hose!" Mabel shot back. They were green, to match the pine-tree embroidery. Over them he would wear sort of balloony shorts, and—
"No codpiece!" Dipper said. "That's embarrassing!"
"OK, but without it you're gonna be left hanging," Mabel said with a shrug.
And there was a blue flat cap, roughly octagonal, some pointy black shoes, and—
"Is that a lute?" asked Dipper.
"Mandore," Mabel said. "It's just a replica. Four strings, so you can play it like a uke. And it has this big round pear-shape body, so if you don't wear the codpiece, you can hold it in front of you to cover your tracks."
Dipper looked at Wendy. She looked at him. "Might be fun," she said.
"You really want to go?"
"Maybe for a day to see what it's like. You up for it?"
"Do I have to wear the outfit?"
"Dude, if I'm a princess, you gotta be something. A troubadour's not bad. And you can play the guitar, so that whatchamaycallit shouldn't be a problem."
"Wendy," Mabel said, "tell him he's gotta wear the full ensemble."
Wendy made a face. "Codpiece too, Dip."
"Ohhh. . . ."
"I'll help you put it on."
"You talked me into it," he said.
Now, in Portland or Seattle or any other place where ren faires were annual celebrations, they might have gone on the first Thursday, and that would be that, right?
But . . . this being Gravity Falls, there were bound to be complications.
Nobody knew it, but from sunset on June 21 to sunrise on June 23 was also the celebration of lár an-tsamhraidh, Midsummer. Not for the humans of the Valley but for the infestation—sorry, wrong word there, the small kingdom—of the Gravity Falls Fairies. All of them from the High Fae to the barf fairies, met in solemn conclave to celebrate the turning of the seasons, observe the ancient rituals, and screw like there was no tomorrow. We are talking fairy orgy here. Indiscriminate partner-swapping, threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes, a writhing, surging, gasping, howling, sweating, panting massteria.
Fortunately, this activity was confined to the faery circle in the depths of the woods. However, even fairies reach their limit and so in singles, twos, and threes, the whee! folk went for walks to cool off and recharge before returning to dive in again.
And that morning a small group of them, exhausted from having been intimate with each other in a permutation of so many ways that some were not sure they had not in fact mated with themselves, wandered in the cool hours to the field of tents and booths.
"What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here?" one asked.
Another, who had a bit of a sex headache, muttered, "Shut the Puck up. Humans. What are they doing?"
"In good sooth, they seem in fair way to aping the bygone dayes in whyche they were but our playthinges," said a very comely and completely naked lady fairy who was rebounding faster than the other five (two fairy guys, two fairy girls, one fairy intersex, if you must know. And yes, she managed to talk like that. I mean, you could hear the silent e's).
"I miss those days," another said. "Such fun we had with the foolish mortals then! And no harm done. Well, aside from the ones who ran crazy or visited us and then shriveled up and died of old age the next morning."
"Let's," said the first speaker, "let's cast a glamour."
"What mean'st thou?" asked the naked fairy lady, snuggling up to him.
"Just for lár an-tsamhraidh," he said. "Just for the rest of this day, just 'til the cock crow."
"Marry, sirrah," said the fairy baron, the highest ranking of the group, "and what's thy point?"
"'Twill be fun," said the trickster.
"Yeah, all right," the baron agreed. And so they gathered together, cast the spell, and decided to check back later to see how it all turned out. Meanwhile, five of the six felt horny, and the sixth was interested, so they flitted back to the fairy circle to join in the festivities there.
Dipper and Wendy were watching a display of archery—guys and girls bending longbows and loosing shafts at a row of stuffed targets two hundred feet away. They were all amateurs and not having much luck.
"So how does this work?" Wendy asked.
"Well, the competition is to see who has the best score. But hardly anybody's hitting the butts—"
"The what?" Wendy laughed. "Dude, you mean the winner is the one who sticks the most arrows in his butt?"
"The target's called a butt," Dipper said. "But, yeah, roughly what you said. There's a bull's eye on the target, but so far—what was that?"
A wave of disorientation had rolled over everything. It was like that time in the car when Wendy had desperately steered through bubbles of pure madness. As the wave passed, things changed—
"My lady!" Dipper heard himself cry, "I should not be with you. You're nobility, and I but a poor troubadour—"
"Nay, good Master Pines," Wendy said sweetly. "I would be lost without thy sweet music. Play on, I pray, something to divert me whilst we stroll through the village."
Dipper began to play and heard the mandore produce the chords of "O Rosa Bella." He recognized it immediately—though he'd never heard it and had no idea what it was supposed to sound like.
"Sweet, Master Pines, play on," said Wendy.
"Something's wrong here," said Dipper. It came out, "My lady, sure something be amiss!"
As he played, he glanced around. There beyond the stables where horses—huge horses, like the ones in the beer commercials on TV—stamped, whickered, and now and then dropped enormous, smelly reminders that they were horses—beyond the stables were the village butts, and broad-shouldered peasants were loosing arrows that found the centers of the targets with punctures that sounded like knife stabs. There stood doughty Giles Leeford (No, Dipper thought, that's just Lee!) Next to Thomas, son of Thomas (Thompson! But he's all grown up with a beard) who exclaimed, "A pox on thee, Giles! One more round, for my vengeance!"
"Wendy," Dipper said, "this isn't real!" It emerged as, "My lady, everything belies belief!"
"Art ill, my sweet musician?" asked Wendy. Her eyes looked confused, and Dipper guessed she was having the same trouble he was.
"Quickly, my lady, let us seek shade," he heard himself say. Wendy glanced around and followed him. Somehow all the tents were gone, replaced by humble timber-framed houses with stucco walls and thick thatched roofs. At the far end of the unpaved street, Dipper glimpsed a modest church with a modest steeple; lining the street were houses that doubled as shops—a pub, a butcher's—
Oh, my God, he saw beyond the village a stone fortress. No, a castle—crenelated walls, no doubt a moat and drawbridge (below his sight line), pennants flying from the towers—Grunkle Stan would never have sprung for that!
"We'd better go the other way," he said, grabbing Wendy's hand and dragging her off the roadway, finding a passage through a hedge and stopping—
Had he really said, "My lady, bear my touch, we must needs flee this wise?"
"Oh, my sweet troubadour," Wendy said. "This be much to our shame!"
Oh, sure, a peasant alone with a beautiful princess—what was drawing and quartering like?—that could mean plenty of—"Sheep!" he exclaimed.
There was nothing like this in Gravity Falls: A rolling green meadow dotted with sheep and bored shepherds watching them. The shepherds glanced their way and then back at the sheep. The sheep ignored them. They crossed the meadow, passed through another hedge, over a style—a set of steps that baffled a sheep but allowed any human to exit the pasture. Well, maybe not Durland, but most any human.
Small, tilled farms, each with its cottage. Feudalism. The peasants famed, the lord of the castle collected tithes of their produce, they fled into the castle when danger threatened.
Wait—if this was happening to them, what about Mabel?
No time to worry about that now. Beyond the farms lay a stretch of forest, and they made their way to that, Princess Wendy holding up her skirts. "I grow weary," she said.
But they had reached the woods. "A little farther," Dipper said.
And—the band of woods was not all that thick. About six rows of trees, oddly evenly spaced, and—he could guess—arranged in a big circle around the village. And—oops.
Giants!
All around them, sitting, reclining on their bellies, propped up on elbows, even—wow—flying in the air were giants. Pink, most of them. Naked, many of them. Giggling, practically all of them.
"What be these things?" asked Wendy.
"Fairies!" Dipper said.
Only—weren't fairies supposed to be small? The only ones he'd ever seen in the Valley were dragonfly-sized. These were enormous! Why, one naked fairy lady's breasts were the size of the dome of St. Paul's! Two domes!
Curiously, they were so huge that Dipper found he lacked all interest in them as breasts per se.
The fairies' voices were improbably thin, far-away sounding. "I like the kissing wench!" one said. "I'll bet anyone a tumble that she beds Sir Robin ere noontide!"
Dipper's heart sank. Sir Robin? Kissing Wench? He had a strong suspicion that K.W.'s initials were Mabel, and Sir Robin might just be Robbie Valentino.
"There lyeth something in the Journals about breaking a fairy spell," he whispered to Wendy.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. In the dark behind his eyelids, he felt more himself. He remembered reading in Ford's Journal 4, or was it 5, that to break a fairy glamour—
Oh, my God.
He had pulled Wendy back into the shade of the trees. He whispered in her ear, trying his best to make her understand.
She whispered back, "Be these sights but dreams?"
"Aye," he said. "And to free our sight and our minds from them, must we do what I say—my shame, fair lady, for thus meanly telling thee—"
"Nay, what we must, we must," said Wendy, pulling up the hem of her gown.
Dipper sighed and loosed the codpiece, then pulled down the balloony shorts and the stupid tights—not so tight now, having transformed into linen.
He did her first, then she did him.
A moment later, Wendy said, "Man! That's something else!"
"But we have to go back," Dipper said. "Mabel's still in there. Now that we're out of the glamour, they can't enchant us again for at least a day and a night—but God knows what will happen to everyone else unless we go to the center of the—the fair, the village—and undo things there.
"Gonna be embarrassing," she said.
"Tell me about it. Hurry!"
Now they had a strange kind of double-vision. They saw the meadow of sheep—but it overlay the parking lot. A shepherd was Deputy Durland, really, and a sheep might be Manly Dan's pickup. Wendy and Dipper saw them both at once, a double exposure.
The Renaissance Festival, though, still looked like a medieval village in England. The glamour was strongest there and would need dispersing—
"There's Mabel!" Dipper said.
"That's messed up," Wendy muttered.
Mabel had pulled her bodice way down. Way down. He pink nipples were exposed as she laughingly drew guys in for smooches—and gropes.
They caught up with her and hustled her off behind one of the houses. "Snap out of it!" Dipper said. "What are you doing?"
"Nay, I'm Mad Mabel," she giggled. "Doing the rites of Summer this fair morn." She curtsied. "Greetings, my lady! Why do you linger with this varlet? There be many noblemen about!"
"Cover your boobs," Wendy said, tugging her bodice up.
"Alas, 'tis the only day my bubbies do take the air!"
"Listen, Mabel," Dipper said. "Pull your dress up. Bend way over."
"La, sirrah!" she said. "Thou art my brother! But a tumble in the hay is a tumble in the hay—"
"No," Wendy said, pushing Mabel's back as she lifted her skirts. "Bend over and look between your bare legs! Do it!"
A moment later, Mabel straightened up, blushing. "Whoo! Sweet Sally, what happened to me? I've been letting guys cop a feel—"
"Fairies," Dipper said. "We've got to shake everybody out of it."
"By making 'em strip and look—"
"Doesn't have to be their own legs," Wendy said. "Dip and I did each other."
"Ooh la-la!"
"I have an idea," Dipper said. "The focus of the spell will be whoever's the highest ranking. If we can find him or her and make them do the counter-look—" he paused, remembering something else. "Or—or defeat them in a contest! Yes, that would dispel the glamour and return everything to normal."
"That," Mabel said, blinking, "would be the ruler of the village. Prince Robin the Black!"
"Robbie?" Wendy asked. "Oh, man, let's just go back to the Shack and let it all blow over."
"No telling what might happen," Dipper said. "There could be real jousting or duels. People could die."
"Let's find Robbie," said Mabel.
They passed the money-changing house of Stanley of Richmon, where Grunkle Stan seemed to be trapping passers-by into games of chance. They saw Marcach Gleoite watching a wrestling match between Mighty Daniel and a bear, Marcach's fists clenched as he chanted, "Gette hyym, gette hym, gette hym!"
And . . . other Gravity Fallers in improbable situations.
In the church yard, finally, they saw a pavilion erected over a wooden dais, and seated on a throne atop the dais, a brooding figure all in black—doublet, hose, shoes, cloak—staring out over the fair.
He sprang up immediately when they approached and called out, "Lady Wendifor! My men have sought thee. Thy company is unseemly for a lady of thy station! Come, hast forgot? The priest waits. We are to be wed!"
"Not on your life," Wendy said. "Robbie, it's over. It's been over for years. Let it go!"
Robbie picked up—Dipper gulped—a sword. A real sword. It gleamed in the morning light. "What you will matters not," he said. "I make the laws. And I say, will thee or nil thee, I will this day have you to wife!"
"I challenge you!" Dipper blurted.
Robbie glared. "Silence, fool! Think'st thou I would answer thy challenge with battle? Boy, I'll take thy head from off thy shoulders!" He swashed the blade. "Begone, and leave my bride to me!"
Dipper stepped in front of Wendy. "You're no true prince. I say you're a coward! Mabel, get me a weapon. I will fight you for—for Wendy's freedom!"
"If thou hast a prayer, say it now," Robbie said, striding toward him.
"Wait, he's unarmed!" Wendy yelled.
"He's a peasant!" Robbie swung—the sword was a basket-hilted broadsword and looked heavy—
Dipper barely managed to duck, feeling the wind as the blade swished just above his head, actually knocking off his soft flat cap. Robbie tensed to deliver a backswing.
"Have at you!" Dipper yelled, striking as hard as he could.
The mandore was not designed for combat, but swung by the neck, hard, its round sounding box made a satisfying connection with Robbie's head. The last note it ever sounded was a bass clunk!
"Oh, man!" Dipper yelled, as guards came toward them. "Did I kill him?"
"Just stunned!" Wendy said. "He's coming around! Help me depants him!"
The guards very nearly reached the pavilion before Robbie opened his eyes and blurted, "What the heck?"
"Aw," the fairies said.
"That was no fair," the naked one complained.
"Sure it is," the Puckish one said. "It's a renaissance fair."
"Yes, but the humans broke the glamour. Now it's just a pretend thing again."
"What," asked the naked one, "will we do for fun now?"
Three of them crowded in with ideas.
Robbie was left wondering how he'd wound up in Ren Faire Ye Olde Gaol. He didn't remember mooning everybody, but some witnesses had made videos
In fact, except for the three who had freed themselves, Wendy, Mabel, and Dipper, nobody remembered anything of the glamour. They remembered everything.
And at least two of the three who did wished that they could forget it all. Back in the Shack, Dipper and Wendy first drank a Pitt's. "Want to go back to the festival?" asked Dipper.
"Nuh-uh, man," Wendy said. "I want to get out of this dress."
"Uh, about—I couldn't remember the ritual back there," Dipper said. "I was thinking that a guy had to look at the world through the naked legs of a girl, and vice-versa. I'm sorry I didn't remember you can look through your own legs—"
She grinned. "Forget it, man. How was the view?"
He blushed. "Um—I like those little frilly panties."
She laughed. "I enjoyed peekin' through your legs, too. I liked your codpiece."
"But I—I took it off."
"That's how I like it," she said, her grin widening. "Come on upstairs, Dip. Let's get out of these fancy clothes. Oh, and since you like the panties—" she took him by the hand and led him toward the stairs—"if you dare to come take 'em off me, I'll make you a present of them."
Talk about an offer thou needs must refuse not.
The End