Earth, August 7th, 2012
Pacifica's English Literature teacher—Ms. Wendy—was the sort of woman who would go on about philosophy and moral dilemmas when she was talking about whatever Shakespeare or Joyce piece they were reading that week. Pacifica hadn't seen much of a point of it over the school year, but now it felt like her English teacher had reached into her very brain and set up her own personal nightmare. Pacifica would have been ready to scream if she could get the breath to so much as whisper.
A train was coming. Pacifica stood where the railroad split. On the right hand side, Mabel's foot was stuck to the track, and so was a man's with a blurred face. On the left hand side, every single other person Pacifica knew, plus all the others she didn't, stood on the track.
The train was coming. It was set to plow to the right. It was going to crush Mabel's bones to dust and turn her smile into a smear of blood on the tracks.
"You have to change the train track, Pacifica!"
Dipper was screaming from his spot to the left. His feet were glued to the tracks.
"But…" Pacifica's hand was on the lever. The train was coming. Let it crush Mabel and her uncle, or change its path and pray everyone could jump out of the way in time?
"Change the track!" Dipper screamed, voice shattering into a thousand pieces, but Pacifica couldn't hear him over the roar of the train.
Earth, August 7th, 2012
"Hey Pacifica, do you want to go hunting for unicorns?"
That was how Pacifica woke up. No regrets for immediately punching Dipper in the jaw.
He yelped, jumping away, and his socks slid on the floor. His feet came out from under him. Pacifica fully woke up to the sound of him hitting the ground with a yell.
If this was what having a roommate was like, then Pacifica was living alone forever.
"What time is it?" she groaned as she pulled a pillow over her face. It smelled like Mabel, like lingering pine sap, cheap pink preteen perfume, and maple syrup. Pacifica's face was covered in a sheen of sweat, and the smell just made it worse.
"I'm okay, you know," Dipper said from the floor.
"What time is it?" The ever-present ache in her chest and throat was still there, but it had dulled. She dared to peek out from under the pillow to see bright sunlight filtering into the broken down room. (Ugh, boyband posters all over Mabel's side, scary movie and mystery posters all over Dipper's. How tacky can you get? But the mold was the worst. The ceiling might cave in on them.)
"It's almost noon." Dipper scowled as he got to his knees and leaned his elbows against the edge of the mattress. "Do you always sleep this much?"
"No, just when a demon almost killed me two days ago."
That shut him up. His mouth twisted up and his shoulders hunched with guilt. Good. He should feel guilty. She almost died for his lying butt.
The silence didn't last long. "That's why I was asking about the unicorns. I found something in the journal that might be able to keep Bill out."
"Why didn't you just say so?" Pacifica threw her pillow at his face. "Go away. I need to get dressed."
He sprinted out so fast he almost slipped again. She briefly considered telling him he forgot his shoes, but eh.
Getting up was still painful, but Pacifica didn't get anywhere by giving up when things got hard. She'd had to dig around the room herself for essentials yesterday when Dipper ditched her (which she had wanted him to, so it wasn't like it was a big deal, but still. She had cracked ribs. Would some clothes or a baggie of little soaps or something been so much to ask?) so she knew where to get what she needed. Mabel's side of the room was preserved like a monument, and it felt wrong to touch her things, but Dipper only had boy stuff, so Mabel it was.
Cheap makeup that bordered on clownish was tossed haphazardly on Mabel's trunk with a stack of kiddy magazines and pictures of her with her weirdo friends. Pacifica couldn't use any of it or it might make her break out. She hated going without makeup. Her mother and father always pinched her cheeks and talked about how ugly she looked without makeup, and now she looked like a girl straight out of a domestic violence PSA.
Pacifica traced her finger along her lip. It was still busted, but it had scabbed. Her cheeks and jaw were still tender to the touch. She didn't need a mirror to know the outline of her father's hands still ringed her neck.
She wanted it all gone. It was in the middle of summer, but she eased the trunk open—bottles of cheap strawberry perfume fell onto their sides and magazines slid to the floor—and pulled out one of Mabel's turtlenecks. It was like she pulled the ghost of Mabel out with it. Her scent wafted over her, settling on the room, like Mabel had come back to just quietly let her know that Pacifica was just a guest, and it would always be Mabel's space here.
Pacifica didn't want it anyway. A hundred years could pass with the portal destroyed and Mabel would still linger here. Dipper would be stuck with that, but Pacifica didn't want to live with it forever.
For now, she was stuck living with it. The sweater Pacifica pulled out at random had a unicorn sewn onto it. Tacky, but weirdly appropriate, like the ghost of Mabel was picking out her clothes for her.
Pacifica shuddered. That thought was way too creepy to entertain. Besides, it wasn't like Mabel was actually dead, just far away. Impossibly far away.
She didn't wear anything under the sweater. The heat would be unbearable otherwise. She pulled on one of Mabel's skirts, even though it was too tight on her hips. Pacifica grimaced, pinching the fat on her thigh. She knew that it wasn't a matter of weight. Her hips were already filling out and Mabel's weren't. Still, she didn't like wearing clothes that didn't fit. Her parents would say she looked fat. She did look fat. A fat domestic abuse PSA with zero fashion sense.
Someone—she had no idea who—had stocked the ratty, filthy attic bathroom with the basics for her. Clean toothbrush, hairbrush, even an untouched box of tampons shoved in a dark corner under the sink. New things looked out of place in there. The tiles were cracked, mold grew in the shower, and she could reach her hands out and touch opposite walls. She held her breath and brushed her teeth.
The stairs were steep and the edges of the wooden steps were worn smooth by years of fumbling footsteps. Pacifica probably should ask for help, but she couldn't stand the thought of needing help to go down some stupid stairs.
There wasn't a banister, so she leaned against the wall and hoped that would be enough to catch her. The owner of this place had to invest in some basic renovation, she thought darkly. The bathroom need refinishing, Mabel and Dipper's room needed fumigating, the stairs needed safety upgrades, the creepy eye of providence stained glass window in the upstairs storage den space needed to go (why would someone even put that there in the first place was beyond her), and it all really just needed a thorough fix up.
Her heel slid on the edge of a step. She leaned on the wall, grimacing as she fumbled down. Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall—
Ankle rolling the steps hit her ribs like drumbeats hit the ground he's coming
—and she made it down the steps. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Mabel's pig sat at the foot of the stairs. It raised its head, and Pacifica could swear its ears perked when it saw her sweater, then drooped again when it saw her face. The pig settled its head on its hooves with a huff.
Pacifica grimaced and picked her way around it. That pig should have been turned into someone's breakfast by now, but Mabel was weird and needed a weird pet, she guessed.
Something was burning.
"Is something on fire?" Pacifica said as she followed the meandering doors and ducked into the wrong room on occasion (did someone try to make this building riot-proof or something?) before getting to the kitchen.
"Nah." An old ogre of a man—Mr. Pines, Dipper and Mabel's great uncle, the first man to lose a twin to the portal—sat at the kitchen table without pants or shirt (ew), reading a newspaper and drinking coffee that looked more like sludge than anything edible. "Dipper is just terrible at cooking."
"Hey!" Dipper said from the stove, which was visibly smoking.
The kitchen was in about as terrible condition as the rest of the house, with all the equipment at least thirty years out of date and stains from God knows what rubbed into the cheap table and the floor and ew. Dipper stood on a footstool in front of the old stove, struggling with a smoking pan and a spatula.
"What are you making?" Pacifica said as she slowly eased into one of the kitchen chairs. Something had bitten through the plastic seat and stuffing was spilling out everywhere.
"I'm trying to make pancakes." Dipper grimaced as he slid a charcoal patty into the trash and sprayed way too much cooking oil onto the pan.
"Joke's on him. I said we should just pop one of those instant meals into a microwave." Stan looked over the edge of his paper. "Yeesh. You look like you got hit by a truck. You get the license plate on that?"
Pacifica shot a glare. "Next week, I'm going to look fabulous again. You'll still be an ugly old man."
His barked laugh made her jump. "Nice comeback, kid."
"Hey, I think this one came out okay!" Dipper shoved a plate in front of Pacifica and plopped a pancake on it. Somehow, he'd managed to make the edges burnt and the inside raw, but everything was awful in this place and Pacifica was too hungry to complain.
"Maybe we can make this a regular thing. You cook breakfast in the morning and I eat it," Stan said as he smirked at Dipper, waving his own empty plate at him. Dipper ignored the plate and just poured more batter into the pan.
"You wish."
"So…" Pacifica poured imitation maple syrup onto the sad excuse for a pancake. "Unicorns?"
"Oh, right!" Dipper started waving his spatula as he talked, flicking bits of burnt pancake all over the kitchen. Pacifica hoped none of it got in her hair. "One of the journals had a spell to repel Bill's magic, but it needs unicorn hair. Luckily, it says exactly where to find them, but unluckily, it says unicorns won't give their hair to you unless you're pure of heart or something."
Pacifica glanced between the shirtless ogre and the pancake destroyer. "I don't think we're going to have much luck with that."
"We'll play it by ear," Stan said with a shrug. "You're blonde. That's probably close enough."
"I don't think that's how unicorns work." But what did she know? All she knew about them was from stories. If the stories about needing to be a virgin girl were true, then at least she had that down pat.
"Do you think your ribs are okay for a walk in the woods?" Dipper asked. A wet splat told Pacifica he was trying to flip a pancake, and she forced down a few more swallows of what he'd already given her.
"If it's to kick that stupid demon out, then I'm ready to run a marathon."
"I'll quote that if you start complaining on the way," Stan said.
Breakfast continued to be just as disappointing as that first pancake, but Dipper tried, so Pacifica couldn't complain. Or she could, but that would require giving Dipper more acknowledgement than she really wanted. She didn't know what to make of him. She didn't want to think about it too hard. The demon was right about his lies. He said she was his friend, but she didn't really feel like a friend considering how easy it was to make her accessory to possibly destroying the world without telling her.
The demon was right about his lies. Who's to say he wasn't right about everything else?
She didn't want to think about it, so she didn't. Instead, she focused on unicorns. She wasn't exactly a unicorn kind of girl, but it was still pretty cool to go hunting for them.
After forcing down intermittent gobs of batter and charcoal, Pacifica's stomach turned and she just couldn't take any more. Dipper left the dirty dishes in the sink while his grumbling uncle went to put actual clothes on (thank God). Pacifica avoided looking at Dipper too much. Instead, she stared out the window. Antigone was still out there, eating all the grass from their unkempt lawn.
"Why haven't you tied up my mare?"
Dipper grimaced as he glanced out the window. "She'll attack me if I get too close."
"No she won't. She's a trained mare." Pacifica squinted at him from the corner of her eye. "You exorcise ghosts and you're scared of horses."
"I'm not scared!" His voice cracked. His face went red and Pacifica went back to staring at her loose horse instead of paying attention to him.
It would be fun to tease him more, to pick at the fact that he couldn't bear going near her harmless mare, but she wasn't really in the mood. After a stretch of silence, his shoulders slumped.
"I'm going to go tie her up." Pacifica hobbled out of the shack and away from the sudden heaviness in the air.
Antigone snuffled her clothes for treats as Pacifica led her behind the Shack and found a porch she could tie her to. Pacifica patted her shoulder and kissed her nose, promising water and carrots later. It didn't give her any of the comfort she was used to.
"Get in the car or you're walking!"
Pacifica frowned and looked around the corner of the rickety old house to see Stanley dressed up and waving her to his death trap of a clunker.
"Aren't we going into the woods?" she said as she patted her horse one last time and walked to the car.
"We can drive part of the way. Whenever you have the opportunity to not exercise, take it," Stan Pines said as he flopped into the driver's seat. "Now this thing's seatbelts are broken, so if we're pulled over, take the scarves from behind the seat and pretend those are your belts."
Pacifica would be furious if she survived a homicidal demon just to die in this clunker, so she sat by the window and braced herself.
Dipper sat across from her, one of his great uncle's journals in his lap. He picked at a gaping hole in the upholstery bleeding stuffing all over the floor. The whole place smelled like grease so thickly that it was like a fine layer of it was settling on Pacifica's skin. Her stomach turned.
The clunker rattled to life and rolled down the path, rocking side to side at every pothole and pebble it hit. The shakes sent jolts through her ribs, like the car wanted to turn the cracks into complete breaks.
Like hell was she going to show she was in pain, though. She squeezed her eyes shut, leaning back and holding her chest gently.
"You okay?" Dipper muttered to her. "The suspension is really bad in this car."
"I'm fine," she hissed as she rested her head against the window.
Sweat beaded her neck and hairline. She concentrated on breathing. Despite the summer heat, her skin chilled.
The one good thing about the pain was that it blotted out any kind of thought, and she had been struggling not to think too much in her waking hours since the attack. She didn't want to think about her parents and why they hadn't come to get her yet. She didn't want to think about the demon that tried to kill her. She didn't want to think about Dipper lying to her. She definitely didn't want to think about whether or not Mabel was worth helping with a portal that could destroy the world. She didn't want to think about the train problem.
The pain just shut up her head. There was only the car's crap suspension and the next pothole.
Eventually, there was also the car's sharp stop, too.
"My nerd brother wrote that the unicorns are near here." The old man put the car into park, but Pacifica wasn't sure how necessary that was, since they were literally on grass off the side of the road.
"It shouldn't be a long walk," Dipper said as he slid out of the car. His voice was wavering with concern. Pacifica wanted to pinch him to make him stop sounding like that.
Walking was easier than sitting in that awful car, but it still wasn't the best. Already, she couldn't wait to go back to Mabel's bed, ghosts be damned. She wanted to rest, but not before taking care of protecting them against Cipher.
"Does that journal say anything else about unicorns?" she asked, dragging her shoes through knee-high grass and shrubs. She winced as the plants tickled her bare legs and wondered how long it would take before she got a rash or something. This was why her parents didn't allow her to go into any kind of nature unless she was with an instructor or riding a trail. Everything in nature wanted her dead or disfigured.
One shoe sank into the mud. She grimaced as she yanked it out, only to stub her toe on a root.
"Not much. It says that they have magic hair that they give only to the pure of heart, and they're in a secret glen that you can only get by chanting deeply."
"I got you covered," Stan Pines said as he trampled a tiny sapling and kicked a rock into the bushes.
Were there bugs on Pacifica's legs? It felt like there were bugs on her legs. She shuddered and brushed her knees off, but she couldn't see anything but ferns tickling her skin. It smelled like dirt out here. Dirt and pond water.
"How are you doing, Pacifica?" Dipper said, throwing a glance over his shoulder. His brow was so furrowed that Pacifica half-expected him to be wrinkling.
"I'm fine," she snapped, tearing at the grass in her way and ripping at it until the tips were gone and it bled green, fragrant blood. "Just thinking about how they should spray this whole place for bugs. And maybe get a proper landscaper in here."
Dipper shook his head and rolled his eyes. She wanted to jab him, pinch him, anything to express the anger and resentment boiling in her gut, but she kept her hands to herself.
The trees and ferns gave way to a large grassy clearing before she could reconsider. Once more, the grass was too high and there were bugs everywhere and it was probably muddy. It also had big rocks everywhere with geometric patterns smoothed into them as if by very targeted water or wind, and vividly colored flowers sprouted up everywhere among the grass. The flowers were also probably covered in bugs.
"Does this glen look secret enough for you?" Stan Pines said.
"Sure, I guess it looks secret." Dipper offered his uncle the journal. "Read out the chants and the entrance to the unicorn place should open up."
"What is this?" He pulled off his glasses for a moment to squint at the writing. "That's gibberish."
"It's probably some other language. I don't know. Just try to read it," said Dipper.
Stan grumbled as he pushed his glasses on his nose again and started to grumble out something that sounded more like rocks grinding together than words. A mosquito landed on Pacifica's elbow, and with a growl of disgust, she slapped it dead. Gross, now its guts were all over her hands. She didn't suppose any of these savages brought a towel and hand sanitizer.
Dipper smirked as she wiped her palm gingerly on one of the trees ringing the glen. She only responded with a glare.
The rock grinding noise of Stan Pines' smoker's voice gave way to the sound of actual rocks grinding. The grass under their feet rippled, throwing Pacifica and Dipper off balance. Flailing their arms, they grabbed each other's hands for balance as pillars of rock rose from the ground. A bright pink, sparkly door (it reminded Pacifica of Mabel) burst between the rocks.
"That looks like the kinda thing a unicorn would hang out inside. What do you think, kids?" Stan Pines tucked the journal under his arm and put his hands on his hips. He arched his eyebrow down at them. It took Pacifica a moment to realize he was looking at her and Dipper's hands, still clasped now that the ground was still.
"Uh!" Pacifica and Dipper both jerked back their hands like they were on fire. Pacifica gave Dipper the fiercest glare she could manage, and Dipper sputtered. Stan Pines rolled his eyes so hard they might pop out.
"I'm just going to assume this is where the unicorn is," Stan deadpanned as he shoved the doors open.
A wave of Lisa Frank hit them like a truck. Stan pulled a face. "Is that glitter I'm smelling?"
If glitter had a smell, it was this, so bright and sweet in her sinuses that it burned. A technicolor landscape greeted them with grass so green and water so blue that it felt like Pacifica had just taken some intense drugs (or, at least, that was what she assumed drugs felt like). At the heart of the brilliant artificial color (and that's what it felt like—food dye, not the Disney brilliance Pacifica glimpsede in the mirror with Mabel) was a unicorn straight out of a kid's cartoons or a bad tattoo store.
"It's burning my eyes," Dipper said as he scrubbed his face.
"Glitter feels like pepper spray," said Stan, pulling off his glasses so he could do the same.
Pacifica's eyes started tearing too, but she grimaced and dealt with it. The unicorn, an unrealistically slim white horse with a long horn, blue diamond shapes on its quarters, and bright rainbow sparkly hair, raised its head and turned its horrifying eyes on them. The eyes looked like nothing but sparkles. Did it even have whites?
"Greetings, and welcome to my secret home, humans!" The unicorn kept tossing its head. Pacifica was pretty sure it just wanted to show off its rainbow hair. "I am Celestabellebethabelle! Please step forward! Just take off your shoes. Go on. Shoes off."
Pacifica grimaced at the grass. "You mean we have to walk on dirt with our bare feet?"
The unicorn let out a haughty huff, not unlike the sort of huff Pacifica's casino mogul aunt would make when her home was insulted. "The unicorn grotto is much cleaner than your shoes! And I will keep it that way. Shoes off."
Pacifica grimaced down at her feet. She wasn't sure how well she'd be able to pull them off without hurting her ribs.
"She lives outside. Who makes you take off shoes outside?" Dipper grumbled as he bent down to unlace his sneakers. Pacifica jabbed her elbow into his back to keep balance while she pulled up one foot to start working on. "Hey!"
He kept grumbling, but he didn't try shaking her off. She left her shoes on the ground, grimacing as she inched her feet into the grass. It tickled her toes, unlike any flooring she had walked barefoot on before. It wasn't waxed wood or fine rug or spotless tile. It was… soft and scratchy at the same time.
"I think I'm just going to hang out here," Stan Pines said, holding up his hands and not touching his shoes. "Not like you're gonna have much to say to me anyway. These kids want some of your hair."
"Very well," the unicorn with a weird name said, tossing her head again. "May a pure heart present themselves to me!"
Dipper straightened up, almost throwing off Pacifica, but she had both her shoes off now. He jerked his head towards the unicorn.
"This is so stupid," Pacifica muttered before walking up to the unicorn. The unicorn looked down her nose at her like she was lower than a cockroach. She was a smear of dirt that needed wiping up. It was the same way her parents looked at her when they were angry.
"You?" the unicorn scoffed. "You look like you've been in a bar fight. I've scraped purer things from my hoof."
"Hey, don't talk to her like that!" Dipper said. He sounded offended, like he was the one who was just insulted, but Pacifica just waved him off.
"Yeah, yeah, my family doesn't trade in purity." Too bad that the 'young virgin girl = purity' stories weren't true. That would have made their lives easier. "But you know what we do trade in? Money."
The unicorn squinted. "I'm listening."
Dipper's jaw slackened. Pacifica crossed her arms, looking the unicorn up and down. "We want your hair, but we won't tell you to give it to us for free. What do you say to, let's say… a hundred dollars per handful of clippings?"
"A hundred dollars? Please." The unicorn tossed her nose into the air, but there was a familiar gleam in her eye. Pacifica had reeled in her interest. "Do you know how rare my hair is? My mane is worth millions. Millions, I say!"
"For something so valuable, you don't exactly have a lot of buyers, do you?" Pacifica said as she examined her nails. They were rough around the edges from her struggle with the demon and from not having her regular manicure, but it still left the unicorn huffing from not being the center of her attention. "It looks like I'm the only one offering."
"I don't need to take any offers," the unicorn said with another aunt-like huff. "Five thousand dollars per handful. And no shaving."
"Five thousand?" Pacifica used the same laugh she always reserved for making fun of Mabel, perfectly elegant and condescending. "Don't flatter yourself. Two hundred, and I'm being generous."
"I don't like your tone!" The unicorn scratched her hooves against the rock she stood on, leaving long scratches like Antigone did when she saw animals she didn't like. "I'm being very generous with five thou—"
"HEAD'S UP!" Stanley Pines popped up behind the unicorn and smashed a rock into her temple. She toppled with a crack and sprawled out on the too-bright grass, tongue hanging out and a goose egg forming on her face.
"Oh my gosh!" Dipper slammed his hands onto his cheeks. "Grunkle Stan, what did you do?"
"What does it look like? I knocked her out!" Stan crouched by the unicorn's neck and pulled an electric razor from his pocket, turning it on with a (probably deliberately) menacing laugh. "Why negotiate when you can just rob someone blind?"
"Uh…" Pacifica squinted while Stan whistled as he shaved the unicorn's mane. "This doesn't seem right."
"Kid, she was scamming you." Stan waved his razor in the air, letting strands of rainbow hair fly. "That 'pure of heart' junk? Obviously a bit. There's no such thing as a pure heart, because there's no such thing as a flawless person. She was trying to get rid of you and keep her hair all to herself, and if that didn't work, she wanted to charge you through the nose!" He ran his razor up and down the unicorn's neck, taking off flecks of her neck hair alongside her mane. "Believe me, scammers expect to be robbed every once in a while. It comes with the business. That's why you should always keep your eye on the old man in the back!"
"Oh boy." Dipper pulled at his hair. "Do you think unicorns can curse people?"
"We'll find out soon enough!" Stan Pines said with a big fat grin as he gathered up the unicorn's entire mane into his arms, leaving her neck bare and weird-looking.
"Hey, C-Beth? Did I hear you over here?" a masculine voice among the technicolor trees said as the sound of hooves drew near.
"SCATTER!" Stanley threw something to the ground, and everything was consumed by smoke. Pacifica reeled back, blinking her burning eyes, but Dipper grabbed her hand and they were running, stopping only to snatch their shoes from the ground before fleeing the scene of the crime.
Grass and rocks and the smell of glitter rushed under Pacifica's feet. Her ribs screamed and her head spun, but bubbles of hysterical laughter caught in her throat, and she kept running.
Dimension ?, Day ?, 2012
Ford's journal was full of sketches of their hosts—from the twisting muscles under their tattooed flesh to the knots of needles that seemed ready to sew anything. They clicked across the stone ceiling all while he and Mabel tried to draw them. Mabel did her best to describe the monsters that had attacked them in the previous dimension, and he did his best to draw from her descriptions, but even thinking of them made his skin crawl.
Most of all, he indulged himself and drew her. Human, regular, but unbelievably perfect Mabel. There wasn't much scientific value to drawings of the way she reached out to touch a needle alien when they lowered themselves to the pools below. There wasn't anything researchable in how her eyes looked off into the distance, more melancholy than usual but still with persistent optimism. There wasn't any new scientific knowledge to gain, but it nonetheless made him happy to dedicate a few pages just to her. It wasn't as if anyone else was going to read his journals anyway.
When he was paying such careful attention to her face, he could pick out all the family resemblances. Under the baby fat (which was becoming scarcer the longer they were together), she had the same square jaw as Ford or Stanley. Her dark brown eyes came from every Pines he ever met, from his Safta down to Shermy, who had had massive brown eyes that darted to look at everything from the moment he was born. She didn't have their same large, red noses though. She had a little one, probably from her mother.
Eventually, Mabel tired of drawing before he did (though her understanding of anatomy was getting better). She skipped off to explore the underground cave, ducking her head into nooks and crannies, dodging and struggling to climb stalagmites, splashing into the pools peppering the rocky landscape and laughing as she failed to catch fish with her bare hands.
Ford's careful pictures of his niece gave way to sketches, more motion than detail. How long had it been since he'd just made little half-done sketches? He smiled to himself as he drew out his niece splashing through water. She shook out her wet hair like a dog, splashing any needle aliens above her. Most of them flinched back, smoothing the water off their silk and carefully tattooed skin with the shafts of their needles, but two little ones just shook the water off and wove rope that stuck to the ceiling, climbing down as they wove more and more and they could land on the edge of the pool. One had multicolored bubbles tattooed all over its bony ribs, and on the other one's spine were tattoos of foreign constellations dotting each vertebrae. They crouched next to the pool, swiveling their heads to watch Mabel splash around before the starred alien hooked one needle on the back of Mabel's sopping collar and plucked her from the water.
"You're not good at hunting fish," the bubbled one said.
"I'm not hunting! I'm splashing!" Mabel flicked water at the bubbled one's face, causing it to jerk back and click its needles on the rock ground. "Bap!"
If they could, Ford was sure the aliens would be squinting at her. The bubbled one reached into the water, wetting its needles before holding them over Mabel's head and shaking them. "Bap," it said.
Drops of water dappled Mabel's wet hair as she giggled. "It's like rain."
Mabel was good with people, even aliens. Diplomacy was a skill Ford had never quite mastered, but it came as easily to Mabel as it had come to Stanley. People just naturally came to love her. Ford included, but he was her great uncle, so he was biased.
Despite her various wounds, she was a fount of energy and started teaching the aliens water games. Ford did not have nearly that energy. He was much too old to. His bones ached, and under his bandages, he knew something ugly lurked. It wasn't exaggerating to say that he had been dying before Mabel got him.
Mabel was perfectly happy playing with the aliens, so he dragged himself back to their little silken home. All of his supplies were accounted for, and he could sleep easy knowing that Mabel was safe with people who found her just as impressive as he did.
So he slept. Dreams drifted in and out. He dreamed of being a child again, of sitting with Stanley on the swings they used to love so much and wondering if he should take his hand. Ford never quite screwed up the courage to reach out before the dream would shift into something impossible to remember.
The moment someone crossed the threshold, he snapped awake, jerking to sit up. Mabel, mid-tiptoe, winced before sitting down on the ground. "Sorry, Grunkle Ford. You can go back to sleep."
He grunted, his brain winding down again now that he saw it was only Mabel making the noise. Settling back to the silk-covered ground, he patted the space next to him. She crawled up, lying down and using her hands as a pillow. Her hair pooled out, tangled and rough, tickling his cheek.
Ford twisted his fingers into the snarl. No one had brushed it since the braids were taken out. Once, her hair had smelled like Earth, like cheap fruity shampoo and maple syrup and grass. Now ozone and sweat clung to it. Something underneath it all remained the same, though. Something gentle and sweet.
Mabel pulled a face as his fingers caught in the knots.
"I know I should chop it all off," she said. His fingers stilled in her hair. "It's okay. You can cut it."
Ford's eyes trailed on the hair that spread out on the ground all around them. Despite its unkempt nature, there was something classically beautiful about it, like a Renaissance painting. But listen to him, getting sentimental—hadn't he known in the first place that they would need to get rid of it eventually? Hadn't he told himself he would take their shared survival more seriously than ever, that he would not spare her feelings?
But maybe it wasn't her feelings he was sparing.
"We'll have to cut some. It's dangerous like it is." He carded his fingers through her hair, working out the knots. "Out here, the most important thing is to do what you can do survive. That sometimes means you do things you don't want to."
He paused in his playing with her hair just long enough to drag his jacket close to them, skidding his fingers over the leather pockets before pulling out a smooth black handle with a pearlescent white button.
"Mabel, I need you to listen to me. This is a switchblade." He pressed the button and a black knife flipped out, now erect atop the grip. Mabel's eyes were wide and bright as she admired the way it gleamed. The blade would never dull, and would cut through anything short of solid metal. It was his best knife, but he couldn't think of anyone he'd rather have it more. "I need you to start carrying this wherever you go. It is an invaluable tool and weapon."
Her hand fluttered like a frightened butterfly as she reached for it. He closed her fingers around it for her, pressing her thumb against the button to sheath the blade again. "The multiverse is a treacherous place. I'm going to teach you how to use this, and any other weapons that you can use at your size. You need to learn how to survive, and sometimes, surviving means killing for food or protection."
She winced at the thought, like he had slapped her. He wanted to swaddle her in silk and protect her from the world, but he couldn't. Attempting to would only set her up to die once he was incapacitated.
"I don't want to kill anything else, Grunkle Ford," she said quietly.
Else? His heart lurched, but he didn't pry. Instead, he impulsively pulled her hand to his mouth, kissing the fingers grasping the knife. "I know, sweetheart. But you have to learn."
Her eyes were glassy as she looked at the ground, at all her beautiful tangled hair splayed out, but she didn't protest anymore. Maybe that was the worst part.
"You're right that we have to cut your hair. That's another part of surviving." He let the hand with the knife go, and she pulled it against her chest like a lifeline. She'd take care of the weapon, he was sure, even if she wished she didn't have to. He went back to gently carding his fingers through her hair. "But we don't need to get rid of all of it. We can keep enough for tight braids."
Her smile was rueful. There was a flicker of the useless metal brackets on her teeth. "I know you don't like wasting time on that."
"I just didn't appreciate it for what it was for a while." It was frustrating to look back on the past and remember being irritated by learning how to fix her hair. After so many years of being alone, after so many near-death experiences, why hadn't he understood how wonderful it was that he had a chance to do it at all?
It wasn't like he was ever going to have a daughter of his own whose hair he'd fix. That fact was just made keener the more Mabel showed him the kind of life he might have had. If he had just forgotten the damned portal and focused on settling down like Fiddleford had suggested, he might have been able to have a little girl like Mabel to raise in the safety of an unthreatened Earth. But there was no use dwelling on could have beens.
"I like fixing your hair," he said. The corners of her eyes softened. She seemed to accept that answer. Maybe she could even guess why he liked it. She was far smarter than he'd originally given her credit for, and she understood people like he never would.
"I like it when you fix my hair too," she said.
Ford worked his fingers through the tangles, like he was already combing it. "I'll put it in new braids soon."
She nodded, rolling onto her stomach and pillowing her cheek on her hands. On the shoulder laced with fading lightning marks (Ford's stomach twisted), her arm from her shoulder to her elbow was bandaged.
"When did you hurt your arm?" Ford asked. Had he not noticed that? He could have sworn he had made a mental catalogue of her injuries, and he hadn't drawn bandages there earlier. "Were the aliens rough while you played?" The aliens clearly had no intention to harm them, seeing as they could have easily done so while Ford was too weak to wake up, but it wasn't uncommon for aliens to underestimate how delicate humans were.
"No, Bubbles and Connie were good. They're really careful with their points." She wiggled her hands, pointing her fingers like they were needles for emphasis.
"Connie?" Ford frowned.
"Like constellation, except not nerdy."
"Ah." Ford frowned at the bandages. "So then how did you get hurt?"
"I didn't get hurt." She squeezed her lips together, like she was trying to keep something from escaping her mouth. It reminded him of something Stanley used to do when they were little kids and their teachers interrogated them about how a fight in the hallway started. That was the look of a guilty child.
Ford narrowed his eyes and propped himself onto his elbow. "What did you do, Mabel?"
"I…" Her eyes darted side to side. "I might have gotten a tattoo."
Of all the things he suspected, that wasn't one of them. "You what?"
She flashed him a big grin, the same grin she put on when she was trying to be cute for an alien. Damn, she knew how to manipulate people like Stanley could, too. "A tattoo!"
A headache was coming on. Ford gently massaged his temple. "Why did you get a tattoo?"
"Well…" She chewed her cheek, her grin failing. "I was scared of forgetting."
"Forgetting?"
Mabel pushed her translucent silk sleeve up past her bandaging and carefully unwrapped her bicep. The bandage unspooled in her hair, and the colors now imprinted in her flesh shimmered and smoothly transitioned into her natural skin tone despite any logic of color theory. It was a pine tree with a crooked, jagged trunk—a lightning tree. She'd tattooed in the marks he'd left on her.
The roots ran into the veins of her elbow, until it looked like the roots were her blood and her blood fed the tree. The tree shot out six crooked branches (the same crooked branches of the lightning tree) covered in thick green needles. The bark at the base of the tree rose and twisted until it was knotted into a familiar shape, the shape of the hooked fish on Bill Cipher's zodiac (how did Mabel know about that symbol?). Above the tree, a night sky dusted her shoulder, the big dipper above the tree and a shooting star streaking past Polaris.
"I was thinking about what you said with forgetting things from home, and I don't have as many memories as you do. I was scared I might forget what's important. Now I know I won't."
If Ford was about to get angry, he wasn't now. He settled back down on his side. All the tattooed skin was swollen and tinted red, but that would go away with healing. "I understand the pine tree, but how does the rest help you remember?"
Mabel prodded the knotted base of the tree, wincing as she poked the tender skin. "This is the sign that Grunkle Stan always has on his fez!"
Stanley wore the symbol? Ford frowned.
"And Dipper has a birthmark on his forehead that looks like the big dipper," she said as she tapped the stars above the tree. "That's how I thought of his nickname."
Mabel had been the one to think of her brother's name. Ford thought of the many times Stanley had called him Sixer, turning a point of great insecurity into something to celebrate.
"And the tree has six branches, like your hand."
Ford wanted to say that she wouldn't need a reminder to remember him, but he couldn't guarantee that. He could die any day, and that day may be before she's grown up.
"And you say I'm like a shooting star, so I'm in the sky with Dipper." She poked the shooting star passing just above the constellation. "So all the Pines twins are with the pine tree. I'm never going to forget where I come from." She peeked at Ford from under her eye lashes. She was definitely trying to be cute. "Are you mad?"
"An impulsive tattoo seems like the kind of thing a responsible parent would be mad about." Although he had to admit it was much nicer than most tattoos an impulsive teenager would get, and how could he tell her how to deal with missing home? Ford sighed and started to run his fingers through her hair again. "Good thing I'm an uncle."
Mabel giggled, and her smile warmed as she started to re-wrap her bicep.
"It's a good tattoo. Definitely better than mine," he said, allowing himself to relax again. That stopped as soon as Mabel perked.
"You have a tattoo?"
Ford winced. "I shouldn't have said that."
"I want to see the tattoo."
"I'm trying to set a good example, Mabel."
"Let me see the tattoooooooooo."
"No, Mabel."
"Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaase?" She rolled at him and prodded his copious bandages, giggling as he caught her hands and she wiggled closer to check his sides. "Is it under all the bandages?"
"Mabel."
"Is it on your leg?"
"Mabel, stop." Any sternness he tried to muster was undercut thoroughly by the way laughs were starting to bubble in his chest.
"Is it a tattoo of a wolverine?"
"Mabel, I'm not going to show it to you."
"Is it a tattoo of a microscope?"
He let out a snort, and now she was climbing on him, slipping out of any attempt to grab her so she could poke and prod more skin. "Mabel, this is ridiculous."
"Oh, I know! It's a tattoo of a unicorn, isn't it? Tell me it's a unicorn!"
"Are you going to just keep guessing random things?"
"I've got all day, Mister."
Even as he struggled to tame the slippery girl before she tried unraveling all his bandages, Ford smiled.
He could get used to this.
No content warnings for this chapter.
Thank you to Eregyrn-Falls for betaing this chapter. Also, thank you to everyone who commented. Comments, compliments, and critiques are always warmly welcomed.
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