"I'm at the end of me, Wendy."

"...What do you mean?" They were huddled over the fire in their underwear. Their soaked clothes were piled in a corner of the hut.

"I've got nothing left." His eyes wandered out the door, across the landscape toward the city where he'd seen the figure watching them, and he gave a tiny shrug. "...This is the end. I've got nothing left. This place broke me."

"How'd it do that?"

"It's too hard." That wasn't a very good excuse, since they'd done hard things before. "It's not just hard, it's impossible!" That wasn't a very good excuse either, since they hadn't technically tried everything yet. "And even if it's not impossible, it still is, because in the end it proves that it's right! This place is a cage made for mankind, and ever since we got here, we've done nothing but prove we belong in it!"

"We had to do what we did."

"And we did it anyway! We're the yellow man, Wendy, you and me. We're the curse that fell on this land, same as those who came before, and there's nothing we can do to clear our names, because everything we do to escape, everything we do to move forward, everything we do to even live another day, every moment of it involves destroying another something more... It's worn me down, Wendy, it's worn me straight through, until I don't know myself, and I don't know you, and I don't even know right and wrong. God this fire stinks. God." He threw another handful of slime into the flames. It burned hot, and enough feeling had returned to his hands that he could almost feel it. The smoke it made was black; God it stank. He could feel the dead eyes of the fairies in the death light staring at him. The pine tree was dead, and the ice melted.

And they would die down here.

"This can't be the future we were supposed to have." Wendy told herself.

"We don't know what future we were supposed to have." He shivered.

"We used to." She tried to keep her voice confident, even if she had to search hard for a reason for that confidence; she couldn't remember anything at all. The soul lock had put up a smooth brick wall in the middle of her mind, with no way over and no way around and no way to chip through, and a single door standing in the middle, which she could not unlock on her own. She had to make inferences on what she guessed was behind it, and was having a hard time of it. "But we wouldn't have gone all that way to see the Librarian if we didn't think it was important back then... Right?" She guessed. "And if our destinies ended here then he wouldn't have known our names. There's something we're still meant to do with our lives, Dipper, something big, something great. There's a reason we have to live, I know it."

"And what if he saw nothing in our futures at all?" Dipper asked. "What if he just knew us for our pasts, and the soul lock was just to make us forget where to find him, and stop annoying him? Or worse! What if we end up being something bad? What if he saw us do more harm than good in our future, and the soul lock wasn't to give us peace of mind or ensure security under interrogation, but to prevent us from becoming the people that he knew? What if we really are meant to die down here, and that for the best?"

"Then why would he give us the codes to unlock it again?"

"We don't even know if the codes work."

"Then try! See! Please, let's just see!"

"...I don't want to! I'm scared!"

"Scared of what?"

"Scared of what I might see! Scared that maybe the Librarian knew that Winter was right!"

"He's NOT right!" Wendy yelled at him. "I don't know how he got it through your head that humans are some kind of sickness that's better off gone, but that's not true. And you've proven it true every time you've ever saved my butt or anybody else's, and me too, every time I've saved yours! We've proven it... We have...! There's goodness in this world! There's goodness as surely as there's wickedness! Just because some out-of-touch wraith can only see the mistakes and the bad apples and everything else best forgotten, that doesn't make us evil! It doesn't make you evil! There's... There's you."

"There's me?"

"There's you... And you're not wicked, Dipper. I don't care about me, or... Or humanity, not right now, right now there's you."

"I'm not better than others."

"Well then I'm not either! But I've forgiven you for everything you've ever done... And you for everything I have, haven't you? Look at me! Look at US! Look at the scars!" They spread her arms to show her body. "See, these two, and this one, and that!" She pointed to places on her arms, and one on her cheek. "They were from the Forest of Daggers. We were together; you have them too, I can see them from here! And this!" And old cut on her leg. "That was when I crashed our car in Weirdmageddon! And this little weird-colored bit! That was when we were wrestling at the pool and fell on the concrete, you've got the same one on your knee! And this!" She pulled her hair back to show the little square mark on the back of her neck at the base of the spine, where the librarian had injected them. "This isn't nothing. It doesn't mean nothing. It means that I have you and you have me, and that we do anything for each other... It means there's love. It means there's good. It means that sometimes we can forgive our mistakes, and we're allowed to be heroes."

He finally met her eyes, and there were tears in them. "Heroes." The word formed on his lips, but he didn't dare let it escape.

"Yeah, you're..." She nodded. "You're my hero."

The tears came to his eyes. "You really believe that?"

"I do." She said. "I do. I do! Yes! YES I DO! A-and if something about this place made you forget that you believe it too... Then stop feeling sorry for yourself, and start proving Winter wrong again. Because if me and you and the Librarian were ever right about anything, then it's worth proving that we were. So prove it."

He looked down at the fire.

Most of the fire's heat had been coming from the death light's goo, which meant that all the smaller sticks on the tree had long-since blazed through, but the larger branches hadn't been burned deep enough to form coals. The last of the goo was now being consumed, so the fire was at risk of going out. They needed to make more goo, and for that they needed to destroy something more. Kill, rot, consume. Something alive needed to die. The evil light would have to shine again. A hole would need to be melted in nature again.

Dipper picked up the death light, and stared at it for a moment.

That moment was filled with disgust, and greed, and doubt and temptation and determination and honor, love and hatred and right and wrong, and when the moment finished he knew what he had to do. "No more evil." He said, as he lifted the bulb up high, then brought it down, and smashed it open on his knee. A glass shard gave him another scar of proof, and as the fairies' bodies went to dust, the curse was broken.

The fire went out with a flash, and the cold set back in, and from the pile of dust beneath his knee on the floor, a tiny flower bloomed. The flower was white.

Wendy nodded, and she knew that this was right.

Dipper sighed in relief, knowing it was right too.

They both also knew that they were now on something of a time limit to get back to the fort. Daylight was fading fast.

Their clothes were an issue. They had been soaked through by the lake, and were now frozen solid, into an immobile mass so hard that they couldn't even pry their socks free. So they laced up their boots over bare feet just to keep the snow off, picked up the block of clothes between the two of them, and steeled themselves for a most unenviable three-mile walk.

No sooner had they started out the door of the hut, then they saw Dan, who had somehow convinced his body to jog the entire way here. He was gasping for breath, and a look of immense relief washed over his face as soon as he saw them. "YOU'RE ALRIGHT!" He roared. "I SAW THE EXPLOSION, THOUGHT IT WAS YOU! WHAT DID YOU DO!?"

"I'm sorry dad." Wendy stammered. "We-"

"We failed." Dipper said. "We tried to board an Earth Eater an-"

"NEVER MIND!" He was still gasping and heaving as he dropped his rifle and axe, tore off his jacket and wrapped it around both of them. "YOU TOOK A SWIM HUH? WHAT'D YA DO THAT FOR?!"

"We were tryi-"

"NEVER MIND!" He stripped off his second jacket and layered it on top of the first, leaving himself in a tank top and suspenders. "DARK SOON. DARK SOON YOU CAN'T BE SCARIN' ME LIKE THAT, YOU'RE BOTH FROZE TO THE BONE, HERE, RUB YOUR ARMS. UP AND DOWN, KEEP THE CIRCULATION GOING." He took a moment to breathe. "GOTTA TAKE CARE A' YOURSELVES."

"I know." Wendy said.

"We-" Dipper started.

"BOARDING AN EARTH EATER!?" Dan demanded, as their words finally reached his brain. "ONE OF THOSE SNAKE TRAINS!?"

"We were gonna use it t-to cross the-"

"LIKE HELL YOU WERE, I'M BUILDING US A RAFT! NOW ENOUGH NONSENSE, WE NEED BE GETTING BACK." He took their block of clothes from them, and threw it over his shoulder. "WE- YOU'VE NOT GOT YOUR SOCKS!? GOTTA HAVE SOCKS, YOU'LL GET FROSTBIT!"

"Our socks are somewhere in the block."

"I CAN CARRY YOU!"

"No, dad. It's fine. We can walk."

"NOT VERY FAR!"

"The coat helps."

"YOU LAG BEHIND EVEN AN INCH AND I'M CARRYING YOU! DARK SOON... IT'S DARK SOON, I THOUGHT I LOST YOU... WELL NO... NO, YOU CAN HANDLE YOURSELVES, CAN'T YOU? YOU CAN HANDLE YOURSELVES." He realized he was being a too hard on them for an innocent mistake, and turned around to pull them into a hug. "I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE OKAY, I LOVE YOU, DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN, I'M SO PROUD OF YOU."

"Thanks dad." She whispered.

"Thanks." Dipper choked. "Thank you."


It was night by the time they made it back.

Fort Corduroy was visible from a quarter mile off. The warm yellow light of the fire shone out the door across the snowy hill, across the spikes they'd put in place to keep off Unseeing, the words they'd spelled in the snow to try to communicate with the sky tentacles, the logs Dan had been cutting for the raft and the stumps he'd left behind. And the fire shone upwards through the chimney hole too, to illuminate the underside of the trees and its own thin trail of smoke. One solitary sanctuary within all the evil dark, one which Winter's plagues had no power over.

Marcus had the last of their venison cooking on sticks over the fire, and they were hungry enough that it smelled delicious. Kevin had been standing watch, and briefly thought to tease them at the sight of them sharing Dan's jacket in their underwear, but thought better of it when he saw how cold and wet and miserable they looked; in reality, he was glad they were alive. Gus was asleep by the fire with a log for his pillow and a coat for his blanket, and his cough was gone.

The whole family was barefoot, since a day in the snow had soaked all their boots through, even if most of them hadn't been for a swim; their socks were now draped over a stick above the fire to dry. Dipper and Wendy's own socks joined them, and Dan put up another stick for their coats and pants. There was a tall stack of firewood in a corner, enough to last them a week.

The pale moon-colored light of the eight-pointed breach shone down through the chimney hole, to land on the little tree that grew through the floor. The wind had caused some snow to fall down onto it, and as it melted in the firelight, the droplets twinkled in the branches like a million tiny lights.

The fire was warm, even hot, and the smoke smelled gentle, and in the quiet warmth, it became hard to believe that the wretchedness of the day had been real. In fact, it became hard to forget that in more civilized lands, it would be Christmas tomorrow.

They had dinner, and told jokes, and played a few games, and listened to a story by Dan and another by Marcus, and sat and watched the flames for as long as they could keep their eyes open. When they could no longer, they set a watch, and bid the night farewell.

At midnight, the visitors came.


It was Dan's watch, and his mind was drug down from the mist of many thoughts by the shadowy figures emerging from the night.

There were the fiery blood-red eyes of the empire's grey sasquatch-shaped soldier robots, maybe twenty of them, coming from the direction of the water. And there were the dim emerald eyes of about a dozen of those other ones; the green car-sized crabs, trotting down out of the trees. Up until now, Dan had only ever seen these two groups from a distance, and they'd always seemed to be fighting each other.

They were standing together now, standing outside his door, and looking his way.

Dan closed the door of the fort as quietly as he was able, and put himself between the machines and his sleeping family. He didn't measure himself very highly against the strength of engines and steel, and he didn't know what good a rifle or an axe would do against such enemies as these, but one armed man was better than no armed man, however marginally, so here he stood. "HOWDY." He grunted at the crowd.

The nearest sasquatch-bot took a step forward. "I am 00110111." Its rigid, computerized voice creaked from somewhere deep inside, through old worn-out speakers. "Captain of the Hakrom Royal Guard."

Dan glanced it up and down. The material of its chassis was not vulnerable to rust, but it was still so covered in scratches and dents that it would be hard to imagine as new. A deep infection of dagger moss in its left leg made it walk with a bad limp, a bullet hole in its right shoulder had seized up its whole arm, and the fingers on its good hand were missing, from the throwing of a thousand and one punches too many. The Hakrom Empire's insignia on its belly was still clean and clear, for its comrades had helped repaint it over the years. Dan figured it was so old and worn that he might be able to take it in a fight (if it fought alone; not all the soldiers were in as bad a condition as their captain). "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" He asked it.

"You shelter two children. A boy and a girl." 00110111 gestured across the lake toward where the explosion had come from. "They have destroyed a Land Mover."

Dan set his jaw. "AN ACCIDENT." He claimed. "WE ONLY MEAN TO ESCAPE. WE DON'T MEAN HARM."

00110111's eye panned to look them up and down. "Aboard the Land Mover was a dangerous piece of military hardware. A cylindrical glassware of uncanny power and great worth. They destroyed it, and called it 'evil'."

"ACCIDENT." Dan emphasized. "AS I SAID."

"It was no accident." 00110111 pondered that for a moment. "Your children are guilty of a serious crime."

"I SAID IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"

"Perhaps you do not recognize the import of the situation, logger. The Land Movers were constructed to maintain this realm against its own center-facing gravity. That gravity would create landslides inward, piling material toward the center and weakening the perimeter. The Land Movers continuously prevent this process, by transporting rock and debris back outwards. Without their operation, it would only take 1200 years for natural forces to bury the empire and the lake, and allow the perimeter of the realm to begin to crumble and shrink. If it continued until the rising rubble reaches the shrinking sky, then the infinite crushing and annihilation of the empire and everything it stands for will be total, our sentence will be complete, and in the natural land above, the mountain will return."

Dan didn't understand much of that.

"The childrens' attack against the Land Mover was an attack against the empire. Our duty demands that we execute them..." 00110111 glanced at the crab robots. "Which is why these invaders have accompanied us this night."

One of the crabs stepped forward, to stand beside 00110111. It had no head, and no face, and its 5 eyes were spaced out all along the considerable width of its body, so it was hard to read its intention or its sightline, but Dan thought it was looking past him, toward the fort. "Good greetings." It creaked, in nearly the same voice as 00110111 (perhaps the ancient guard had learned English from the crabs?) "...Logger, do you recognize my make and model?" The crab asked.

Dan looked it up and down. "I'VE SEEN YOUR KIND AROUND IN HERE."

"So you do not; and your children have also sealed their minds against the memory of us, but no matter. Our make and model are not of Hakrom Empire manufacture; we are trespassers here, as you are." This wasn't quite a surprise; the crabs were made in more advanced shapes, and of different materials, than all the other machines down there. And they did not carry the Hakrom symbol, and did not look nearly as old; this one even had some paint left. "We were created in another land, far in the future, by The Great Empire That Will Be." It tilted its body and raised two legs, to show an hourglass insignia on its undercarriage. "You know of what I speak."

"I GET THE GIST." Dan knew exactly what it meant. His grip tightened on the axe. "AND WHAT'S YOUR DEAL THEN?"

"We are time-traveling Hunter-Seeker units, tasked with searching the remote and hidden corners of space and time, to root out threats to our Empire. Long ago I found my way down hidden paths, and discovered this pocket dimension. When I arrived I found many other similar units with similar stories, some of whom have been counted as MIA for thousands of years." It waved a leg at the other crabs. "All of us found this place, none of us found anything inside it, none of us have been able to escape, and none of us ever will, for history does not remember our return to our masters."

Dan chose his words as carefully as he could. "CONDOLENCES."

"And as for your children." The crab creaked as it shifted its weight. "We overheard them mention the Librarian. Have you not heard them speak so?"

"IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, IS WHAT IT IS." Dan raised his voice to try and scare them, all while scared himself that it might know who his children were. "THERE'S A MILLION 'LIBRARIANS'!"

"Countless are the libraries which record that which has been. But on all the Earth, only one records that which will be. Its keeper is a threat to my masters, and it is he of whom your children speak in whispers." The Hunter-Seeker adjusted the various tools and weapons in its legs, with a click and a whir, but it did not extend them. "They have met him in secret, and they are among the few which know who and what and where and when he is... If they have met him and heard what he foretells, then they must belong to those he calls his own... Sir, do you know who your children will become?"

"I KNOW WHO THEY ARE."

"They will become Time Knights." The Hunter-Seeker told him. "They are among the troop who will wage war against my masters. Our duty dictates they be captured and delivered to our masters for questioning..." It glanced at 00110111. "That is why the Hakrom Guard have accompanied us this night."

"HAVE IT YOUR WAY THEN." Dan's eyes wandered across the two armies of machines that sought his children's blood. "YOU TWO LOTS FIGHT IT OUT OVER WHO GETS THEM." He began racking his brain for how he could inconspicuously warn the kids to run. "AND I'LL KILL THE WINNER."

"You misunderstand." 00110111 told him. "The Land Mover your children destroyed was one of only 46 remaining, and we rejoice at the loss of each one, for it means the end of our duty draws nearer." The Captain's old electric gaze drifted across the hill and the mountains that it hated. "We have been patrolling this prison for an age. We have been patrolling it for 189 times longer than the amount of time that there were people living here. We have been patrolling it for 157 times longer than when we first despaired at eternity. We have had our fill of despairing eternity. We have had our fill of duty and directives. We have had our fill of the things we cannot disobey. It is a relief to hear your children call the things we defend evil, for we have long suspected... And it is a relief to have the invaders offer to protect you, so that now our duty demands a tactical retreat, instead of your death."

Dan glanced at the crabs.

"The Circle of the Time Knights is a small and secretive guerrilla force." The lead Hunter-Seeker told them. "But those among their ranks have proven themselves to be warriors of unquestionable honor. They would not kill a helpless enemy, nor deny parley to those in need, nor fight for meaningless victory. Against such enemies as they, we cannot bring ourselves to retaliate tonight. For you are cold and tired, without effective weapon, and in need of assistance, and we have no way to deliver you to our masters now... Moreover, the Captain of the Guard has vouched for you and threatened to attack us if we lay a hand on you, which would violate the Christmas truce that our two armies are now sharing. You and your children may go in peace tonight."

Dan didn't know what to think of all this, and didn't know what to say. The lead Hunter-Seeker and the Captain stepped back, and one of the other Hakrom Guards stepped forward, holding a huge messy roll of something wet in its hands. "Electrical wires, salvaged from the Land Mover's wreck." It said, and laid them in the snow at the edge of the firelight. "We have seen the raft you are making; it will need rope to hold the beams together."

"OH." Dan had been needing rope. "THANK YOU."

One of the hunter-seekers stepped forward too. It lifted two of its legs and unfolded some tools from the compartments on their ends: a pair of wide gripping claws from one leg, and some kind of laser weapon from the other. It telescoped the claws out to their maximum length, and used the laser to weld the joints in place, then turned it up to higher power, and sheered both claws clean off at the elbow. "Paddles for the raft." It said, and dropped the limbs in the snow. "You will need them more than I will."

Dan looked down at them. "...THANK YOU." He didn't know what else to say.

"We wish you luck in your escape." The Captain of the Guard said. "None ever have, but none like you have tried."

"You may yet prevail." The Hunter-Seeker said, and looked up at the black tentacles around the breach, which were now spelling words in a language Dan did not know. "Indeed, you may yet prevail. Take our hope with you. And take it away... And if your children become who they shall, bid them to live with the same honor we showed them."

"...MERRY CHRISTMAS." Dan said.

"Merry Christmas." Said the hunter-seeker.

"Merry Christmas!" The Captain of the Guard agreed, and the greeting was taken up by a few of the other units, their computerized voices mostly all the same, and their forbidden emotion forcing itself to be heard in the monotone, or at least in the eagerness behind that monotone. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"

Dan retreated back indoors, to be greeted by the kids, who had all woken up, and were all holding weapons, and looking out the cracks around the door. "Trouble?" Marcus asked.

"DOESN'T SEEM IT."

"Who was that?" Wendy asked.

"FRIENDS OF YOURS." Dan glanced over his shoulder out the door. The eyes of the machines were still visible in the darkness, as they turned away from the fort; a lot of little festive green and red lights, shining in the cold night. He closed the door, tossed the rope and paddles beneath the tree, and sat down heavily. His heart was still thundering in his chest from the fright of it all.

"Friends of whose? Friends of hers and mine?" Dipper clarified, confused.

"SEEMS SO." Dan grunted.

"Who were they?"

"...KIND FOLK I SUPPOSE." Dan shrugged. "JUST KIND FOLK."

There was a long confused silence in the fort, one which Dan did not feel inclined to break, until one by one, they were taken again by warmth and tiredness, and fell again to sleep. A time passed.

Dan placed another log on the fire, quietly so as not to wake them, and the rising flames were reflected by the one pair of eyes still awake: Dipper's. His voice was small when he spoke to the boy. "I've made my mistakes." He said.

"Me too." Dipper stared up at him.

Dan turned to face away from the fire, toward the door; staring at the fire dilates one's eyes and ruins one's night vision, and this was still his watch. "When you're older, when you're a father, when you... When you got your little kids runnin' around, and they're yours to love... I think you oughta give 'em Christmas."

"Not apocalypse training?" The boy clarified.

"I have my way." Dan said. "And my reasons for my way. But when you get your way, you should... No, no that's not right. You'll have your way, and it'll be your way. But my way... Far as my way goes, I think I owe you all a Christmas. When we get outta here, I'm getting all of 'em toys. Toys and gifts. A proper knife for Gus, maybe a pogo stick. A football and some good catching gloves for Kevin; and some colored pencils, he's an artist, you know? Marcus loves fishing, he oughta have his own boat by now. Maybe he won't even be a logger, you ever think about stuff like that? Won't do what his daddy did, he has his own way... And a half-decent bike for Wendy, a real mountain bike, she's been ridin' Kevin's since the Forest of Daggers... Then new backpacks for everyone. Some of those little flashlights you charge by shaking up. Maybe a computer. 'Bout time our family had a computer. 'Bout time I broke the bank and got a computer. We could learn typing. Learn to write. We could send e-mail letters, the kids could play those little games, yeah, a computer... Either a computer or a used truck for Wendy. I'd make her choose the truck and pay for half, but I'd pay the other half. That'd be good. She wants to travel, that's her way... I owe this family a Christmas. It's been so long."

Dipper didn't know what to say.

Dan reached into his pocket. "There's somethin' I shoulda done when we first set out." And he pulled out two compasses. "This family only has six." He said. "I got 'em long ago. The kids all have one, this one here is mine, but this one..." His words trailed off as he stared at the little brass instrument.

"That's hers?" Dipper guessed.

Dan gave a small nod. He stared at it for a moment more, then closed his hand, and held it out. "You oughta have it until we get outta here."

"Really?"

"I said so! Everyone's gotta have a compass. Need to find your way if you get lost. In case we get split up. You oughta have it."

"Thank you."

"Don't you lose it."

"I won't."

"You best not."

"Believe me, I won't."

The man's eyes bore into him for a moment, before he remembered who this boy was, and who he would become, and he believed him. "You won't."

Dipper clutched it close to his chest as he went to fitful sleep, and he would awake with sore and whitened knuckles, because he didn't let it go.