Chapter Fifteen: Revelations and Negotiations

"Grunkle Ford! I need to talk to you!" Dipper said excitedly. He was going to make sure that nobody but Ford knew about the Lysnuck People. It would be a terrible betrayal of their trust if he told anyone but Ford.

"Of course. But I'm working on Stanley right now. Can it wait?" Ford asked.

"Oh… Yeah. Of course." Dipper said, realizing that of course Ford's first priority would be Stan.

"Now, Stanley, your bionic organs and nanomachines will be fighting the cancer. I'd like to take blood samples so that I can figure out what kind of cancer this is. I might be able to determine what caused the cancer. Diet, lifestyle, exposure to toxic materials. It started in the brain. So you're going to need to take it easy. The tumor could cause issues like lack of coordination, blindness and so on." Ford said. Stan nodded.

"Well… If anyone can cure me, it's you, Sixer. Damn, we're twins, but you look ten years younger than me still." Stan said. Ford sighed. He'd stayed in shape by traveling through the multiverse. It wasn't always easy. He missed home. But he fought and learned to fight with multiple weapons and learning to fight had helped him stay in shape.

"It's going to be okay, Stanley. You know, I could bring you into the woods and take you to the hot spring." Ford said. Stan laughed.

"I dunno. I tried to live forever before and it didn't work. And if I had to live forever with this kind of cancer, I wouldn't want to do that. If you can help me beat the cancer, I'll take the extra time. But I'm sick of magic and aliens and demons. Maybe if I survive, I'll move to Sacramento. What I'll do, I don't know. But it would be nice to be away from all the craziness in Gravity Falls. I'll miss you guys, but I hope you'll come visit me." Stan said. Ford smiled ruefully. He didn't think that Stan was going to survive. There was one option.

"Dipper… I need to talk to you." Ford said.

"I need you to go get more spring water for Stan. Obviously, drinking it didn't make him immortal, didn't give him the permanent regeneration that you've gotten. But maybe continuing to drink it will enhance his healing at least temporarily to aid in fighting the cancer." Ford said. He was willing to try it in conjunction with other treatment methods.

"I have to tell you something. We collapsed the entrance to the caves to the hot spring. Preston Northwest was trying to get to them and we couldn't allow that. Imagine if someone like Preston was immortal." Dipper said. Ford growled, grabbing Dipper, losing control for a moment. Dipper gasped as Ford slammed him against the wall. Dipper had never seen Ford so angry, so enraged. Suddenly, the anger drained out of him.

"Sorry, sorry… I'm just… Worr… No, there's no excuse." Ford said.

"I'll try to find another way into the caves." Dipper said. Between himself, Mabel, Wendy and Pacifica, they could probably get in. Normally, he'd ask Manly Dan to help them. But he'd sworn a promise not to tell anyone else about the hot springs.
"Don't hurt yourself doing it, Dipper. Stanley is important to me. But I don't want to lose you." Ford said. Dipper nodded.

"So what were you going to tell me?" Ford asked.

"Look at this! You have to promise that you won't tell anyone." Dipper said, showing Ford the pages of the diary that related to the Lysnuck People. Ford read through the entry carefully, looking at Dipper's drawings of them in their human form and then them in their Catfolk form.

"Dipper, this is fascinating. A whole new race of humanoid creatures who can change shape. This is a monumental discovery!" Ford said.

"I promise I won't tell anyone. So, they've disguised themselves as a Native American tribe?"
"Yes, but apparently there are three Zyltrenaeir tribes in the Gravity Falls woods. That surprised me. I didn't realize the woods were so deep." Dipper said. Ford nodded.
"I didn't either. But even amongst Native American tribes, some of them lived fairly close together and they established a cooperative relationship or one dominated the other.

"It seems that these tribes… The Lysnuck, the Sultryn and the Trenvyk have established cooperative bonds though. Have you established where each of these tribes are?" Ford asked. Dipper shook his head.

"They were surprisingly willing to share this relatively shallow information. But they kind of ended up thanking us and seeing us out before I could start asking the deeper questions. I really would like to learn more about them. But I'm pretty sure they won't let me." Dipper said.

"I see. Regrettable. But understandable. Humans haven't shown themselves to be trustworthy. Still, if you and Wendy can manage to get some more hot spring water, I would appreciate it. I don't know if it will help Stanley. But any effort we can make would be appreciated." Ford said.

"I'll try. We blocked the entrance to the caves because we didn't want Preston or Priscilla to get in. But I think I may be able to find a way in to get some more containers of the water.

"The Zyltrenaeir said that drinking the water cold might have some minor effect on Stan's healing, but no matter how much of it he drinks, it won't make him immortal. And in fact, they've… Forbidden me from bringing anyone else to enjoy its effects. I'm… Hesitant to disobey their commands. I'm sure they have reasons for their actions." Dipper said. Ford sighed.

"Yes… Yeah… We need to respect their beliefs. For a long time I focused on learning above all other things. But if you could convince them to allow us to enter the spring.

"You could bring to their attention that their beliefs are not ours for instance." Ford said. It seemed that Ford was eager to get his hands on that spring water, whatever the cost. But Dipper couldn't deny that Ford was right. Dipper didn't even believe in gods or the soul. There was this life and that was it. He'd seen a lot of supernatural stuff including other dimensions. But he hadn't seen any evidence of an afterlife of any sort, whether polytheistic or monotheistic. Dipper was Agnostic. He couldn't prove that there was no god or gods, but he tended to believe that there weren't.

There were certainly powerful beings. He'd seen that in Bill and his fellow outer realm creatures, and those level of beings might be worshiped as gods by certain cultures. But Dipper didn't. He sighed.
"Wendy, I'm heading out. I'll be okay. I need to do this on my own." He sighed, taking some things that he thought the Zyltrenaeir would find interesting as gifts. Did Zyltrenaeir like yarn balls? No. He didn't want to insult them by bringing them stereotypes. Plus they could make their own yarn balls.

-0-

"Excuse me… Could I speak to your Elders? I was here a while ago with Nearra?" Dipper asked. They all stared at him as if he was crazy, just walking into their village like that. One of them stepped forward, sniffing him cautiously.

"I… Talk you language. Not good, but you understand me?" He asked.

"Yes. You speak our language better than some Americans." Dipper said dryly. The man looked at him and brought him to see the elders.

Dipper bowed politely.

"Stand up. We don't bow before elders amongst our people. Our elders are simply the ones with the most experience, not better than anyone else." The English-speaking Elder said.

"Ah. Okay. I was told by Nearra that I'm not allowed to bring my Great Uncle to the Eternal Spring. I would like to understand as well as I can why you forbid other races from seeking its effects." Dipper said, not wanting to offend, but wanting to be as direct as possible so there were no misunderstandings.

The English-speaking Elder turned and spoke to the other Elders.

"We have no business telling you what you can or can't do. We are not humans and we do not tell humans what they can or can't do. There aren't even very many rules amongst the Zyltrenaeir. A Zyltrenaeir may 'seek the effects of the Eternal Spring' as you say if they wish. But it's not well-regarded to do so. We believe that it causes spiritual decay. That in exchange for bodily immortality and invulnerability, it harms the spirit." The woman said.

"Had we known that you were going to swim in that spring, we would have tried to encourage you not to. But you as humans… Your decisions must be your own. They cannot be ours." She said.

"Really? Just like that?" Dipper asked.
"Yes. Just like that. But I warn you. Immortality is not as beautiful as you think."

"None of us asked for immortality. We saw what the spring could do and assumed that it just accelerated healing in the short term.

"We didn't know for sure until some 100+ pound beams fell on Pacifica and crushed her and crushed my leg. They pulled the beams off of us and less than a minute later, we could both walk again and were fine." Dipper said. He was actually a little concerned. He would live forever and could study everything. But what was life if it had no end? Was it actually life? Well, that was a philosophical question for later.

"But we don't want to make our great uncle immortal. We just want some of the water to help heal him from his cancer." Dipper said.

The woman chuckled.

"It's amazing to me how you humans try to rationalize your actions." She said, a mild hint of disgust in her voice.

"Still, as I said, we guard the hot spring mostly from other members of the Zyltrenaeir. We don't stop them if they're determined. But we try to discourage them from seeking that route." She said. Dipper nodded.

"I see. I don't blame you for thinking I'm greedy. Maybe I am. I just am not ready to see my great uncle die. You've lived with humans probably for about 20 years, right? That's a pretty long life for a house cat. But not unheard of." Dipper said.

"13. I was an adult cat when I went into human territory and settled with a human family. So I had about 13 years to live with them. That's how I learned of their language, their habits and customs. I lived with a family named Diaz. They had big meals that were apparently quite spicy a lot of the time.

"They were very friendly to company and their family was very large. They seemed to have their grandmother and grandfather and aunt and uncle and great uncle living with them." Dipper nodded. They were probably Hispanic or Latino.

"What is the average age of the Zyltrenaeir?" Dipper asked.

"Between 90-110. But some have lived as long as 130 and some die before 80. We live longer than humans seem to. I don't know what it is about humans that make them so short lived.

"Perhaps it's their diet. Raoul, the father was quite rotund and had heart problems. He didn't die while I lived with them, but he had a heart attack once and was hospitalized for over a week." She said. Dipper nodded.

"Well, there are a lot of things that humans have done wrong." Dipper said regretfully.

"I have a lot of questions I could ask you. But I'm not sure how willing you are to share your culture with me." Dipper said.

"I suggest that you earn our trust before we share our culture with you." She said.

"But my name is Raizeliya. I am currently the eldest elder at 100 years of age." She said. Dipper nodded.
"Do you shake hands in your tribe?"
"No. We have methods of greetings and goodbyes. But you needn't concern yourself with them." Raizeliya said. Dipper nodded, saying goodbye and leaving.

He went back to the Shack.

"Okay. I got the tribe's permission to take Grunkle Stan to the hot spring. But it will be very hard to get all the dirt out of the way. I've blocked three entrances, and while I suspect there are at least five, I don't think it would be safe to enter the others, as they might be on other tribes' territories." Dipper said.