Playing human again, Alcor makes it longer than he usually does. He's in college now, juggling classes, family, a curious vampire, and a strange, increasingly sinister web of mysteries weaving themselves around him. Without his omniscience to guide the way, he'll have to work hard to get to the bottom of this before it spirals out of control.
Mal didn’t read much–not anymore. She had fond memories of hanging out in the library after school, or stashing books in the forest for those lonely, lazy summers before she had her own car. It was her very first secret: her folks didn’t mean to discourage it, but they had a way of being pleasantly surprised to find her reading that she found absolutely infuriating. Nobody ever went ‘Wow, Dipper, are you feeling alright?’ when they caught him halfway through The Two Towers, so why’d she have to grimace through that same joke over and over and over again?
So of course, she learned to never let anyone catch her.
She’d leave the library when her Mom came to pick her up and pretend she was coming from laser tag. She wouldn’t touch her summer reading list; hey, she was supposed to be the stupid one, right, so why bother? She didn’t need their approval, she didn’t need anyone’s-
“I can’t take it anymore, Angie,” Mal felt a hand on her shoulder as she glared down at a blurring sheet of paper. “I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid, I’m so STUPID!”
“Whoa, calm down, it’s just math! Everyone hates-”
“Not Dipper! It comes so fucking easy to him–why do I even try? Why do I even try at anything!?”
-and with a jerk, Mal was back in the funeral home’s parking lot; midway through a drag on her vape, she gasped and hacked and coughed herself back into reality.
“Oh, shit,” she managed, staring up at the stars as she caught her breath. Then she snapped her head to the side, and scowled. “Is the-ere anything I can do to make you stop fucking doing that?”
She didn’t see his face; she never, never did. But the voice that spoke from her shoulder had become all too familiar.
“Oh, did I upset you?” crooned Ianitor. “I’m sorry, little murderer. I could see you were reminiscing; I just thought I’d help out.”
Bullshit, Mal thought… but she’d long since given up on arguing with him.
“If I may say,” he continued (always, always continued), “it’s strange how you remember past events. Demons, of course, we’re omniscient beings, but it seems like you humans have an oddly… selective memory. You don’t remember Harry in the library with you? Hanging out with Gemma in your forest?”
And sure enough, more little snapshots wormed their way into Mal’s mind. She was more prepared this time; as Harry’s dimpled smile flashed before her eyes, she took a long drag and just… tried to not be here.
“Emmy! Ohmigosh, how’s it going? I missed you soooo much!”
“Come on, Mal! You promised not to laugh at me!”
“Oh, my stars, you’re ridiculous. I love you.”
Her fingers were trembling, so she clasped them together. He’s in your head, so you just don’t think about it, that’s all you do. You just gotta shut off, you just gotta hold on–
“Help! Help! Please, Mal! I don’t wanna-”
“No. No way. That's sick. You’re sick.”
“So, uhh, how’re you holding up?”
“Is that a joke?”
“Of course not. Dude, you look like shit, I’m just trying to- where are you going? Harry? Come on, Harry, don’t be like that! Don’t- why won’t you just talk to me, Harry, come on! Please, Harry, please!”
He’s trying to get a rise; that’s all this is, a rise. Don’t react, don’t think, don’t feel. You don’t get to be a person anymore, this is what you de–wait, don’t think that, don’t- stop thinking, just stop, just STOP–
“Are we doomed? A-are we just doomed to this?”
“What are you talking about, Harry?”
“We’re trying to get away - we’ve always been trying to get away with this shit! Ever since Angeline, we’re– we’ve just been running from this and I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!”
“Emmy? What are you-”
“NO!”e
It was only when the sound echoed back to her that Mal realised she’d said it out loud. Stars filtered back in and found her back against the wall, her hands in her hair, the pen lying in the gravel by her feet.
Her heart was pounding so fast it hurt. No, no, no. Not that night. Not ever again–but a cackle in her ear was a chilling reminder this wasn’t up to her anymore.
“Oh, that one’s a bit too fresh, huh?” The naked glee in his voice could hide behind no pretense; she could hear the wet sounds of his smile. “I can still get you with that one.”
“Don-” Mal started, and then bit it back. Don’t. Don’t. She could see her vision narrowing in–no, please don’t, please! She’d do anything!
“Hah–anything? I hear that so often; you know my price, little murderer.”
Mal just nodded. Yeah, whatever, she’d do another one.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to overwork you; you’ve still got quite the backlog from when I helped you with-”
Her fists clenched. It’s fine! It’s fine! Everyone was still giving her space after– she had time to work on it, that’s all.
“Oh, I suppose that’s true.” And his voice drew back. “Very well, then. Enjoy your break, little murderer. I wouldn’t take too long if I were you.”
And then, finally, mercifully, silence. Mal stood for a moment in the peace of her own mind, eyes closed, soaking in the cricket-song. She used to come out here a lot–used to sneak out her bedroom window when she was a teenager, or walk out the backdoor while the glass was in the kiln, and stare up at the stars and wonder how much she’d miss them when she got to the big city. Maybe she’d get all burned out on NLA, and move onto one of those far-out floating islands, and start a plucky YA fantasy series under the pseudonym E. M. Mercury that unexpectedly hits it big and fly across the world on flashy book tours and movie adaptations but always come home to her cozy little farm under the stars… or, you know, something like that. It wasn’t like she’d put a bunch of thought into it, right?
The ghost of a grin flitted across her lips, before a sigh blew it away. That was all they were–ghosts, dead as the bodies she’d work with for the rest of her grinding life.
She thought a lot about reincarnation, these days. Starting again, leaving your past and your bloody hands behind, living a new life unburdened by all the mistakes you’d piled up in front of you. What would she be like? Would she be a different person… or–and bile climbed her throat–was this something deeper, some rot in her soul, dark and evil and inevitable, that reached out and choked everything good and kind around her?
What if she started over, and found out she was exactly the same?
A shudder. Bending down like someone twice her age, she scooped her vape out of the gravel and stuffed it into her pocket. Rubbed her face. Scratched her arms. Glanced back at the door, then up at the stars, searching like she could find something new in them.
Something.
Anything.
Anything at all.
…
But all she found was a hand on her shoulder. “Little murderer,” it started, and she honestly, truly, wished she was dead right now. “A moment of your time?”
She didn’t even bother to shake her head.
“Yes, yes, I was going to leave you alone. I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I thought you’d want to know something.”
Then he paused, made her turn her head and ask, “What is it?”
“It’s Dipper, your, ah,”–and he chuckled a bit–“your brother. Looks like he’s coming to knock on your door. I told you not to take too long, didn’t I?”
God damn it, Dipper–she rubbed her eyes. Why now? What did he want?
“You’d better go find out. We don’t want him to wonder what’s taking you so long.”
And that got her to move. With a groan, she picked herself off the wall and shuffled back into the crematory, locking the door behind her. Striding across the mess, she reached the other side just as there was a knock. There she paused, and managed a smile; her charm would turn it from a deadeyed grimace into something a little more presentable.
Cracking open the door, she slid outside and shut it behind her. “Dipper!” She said to the figure standing in the dimly-lit hall. “Hey, bro, two questions. What’s up, and why can’t this wait until morning?”
Dipper looked at her. “I know what you did,” he said, and her blood went cold.
“Wh-what? What do you mean?” She backed against the doors. “What are you talking about, I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
But he just looked confused. “Gemma’s code,” he said, slowly. “I said, I know what it says?”
“Uh…” Mal started, and then jumped at a cackle in her ear. The dots slowly connected: Ianitor. Motherfucker.
“Mal?” Dipper looked concerned now. “Are you-”
“Yeah! Yeah, sorry, fine, just…” She waited for his laughter and the white-hot fury in her chest to die down. “What do you- code? Gemma’s code?”
“Yeah… sorry.” His expression softened. “I know… we don’t have to… I know this has been really hard for you. Marsh and I, we can-”
“What, you’re gonna cut me out of this? Cut me out of solving my best friend’s murder?” She spotted a paper in his hands, and snatched it. “Let me see that.”
It was mostly just to check; yep, it was that little code she texted him from Gemma’s phone. Funny–he thought it was sooo easy, but it seems like he only just now figured out the second message she put in there. Smart twin, yeah right.
“No, no, not cutting you out at all, that’s, that's why I came down here!” Her eyes glazed over as he pointed at some circled letters. “I was taking another look, I noticed the x’s, this one is right in the middle of a sentence! Strange, right? And the letters after are capitalised; if you put those all together, they spell-”
“Cabin,” Mal said. Dipper grinned; his excitement was punchable. Nobody told her this false-trail stuff was gonna feel less suave and more like being on a show aimed at particularly stupid preschoolers–‘can you find the clue I left that’s staring you in the face?’ ‘Oh wow, good job!’
“Exactly!” He said, and her fists crumpled the page. “Her family’s cabin in the woods! There’s gotta be something there!”
“Okay, that…” She gritted her teeth. “I, I never would’ve noticed that! But, uh… are we supposed to go now or something?”
“What?”
“It’s the middle of the night, dude.” Shoving the paper back at him, she crossed her arms. “I don’t know about you, but I think vampire hunting is more of a daytime hobby.”
He blinked, the smile fading on his face. “Uh… no, yeah, totally! I just thought you’d want-”
“Want to know, yeah, thanks.”
“Mal-”
“Oh my god, if the next words out of your mouth are ‘how’re you doing’-” She stopped herself, put her hands up. “I’ll-, I’ll see you in the morning, alright?”
Worry was written all over Dipper’s face. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “Okay.”
“Yeah, we’ll, we’ll get Marsh on this as well or something. I’ll call her.”
“Okay.” And as she turned her back on him: “I love you.”
For now, she thought. “I love you too,” she said, and then she shut the door in his face. There was no solitude to be had, though; immediately Ianitor piped up.
“You didn’t like my little prank, did you?” He snickered. “I do apologise, it was–what do you humans say? It was too good to pass up!”
“I thought I paid you to fuck off for a bit.”
“Oh, no, not at all! You should pay closer attention to the deals you make, little murderer.” His claws squeezed down on her shoulders as she crossed the room, stepping over some things. “You paid me to not bring up that certain little incident–for an unspecified amount of time as well, sloppy. Quite sloppy.”
She was digging through the drawers, trying to drown him out.
“And that ‘extra time’ you thought you had, hah, well, that’s just gone up in smoke, hasn’t it? Now that he’s found your trail, it seems like we’d better discuss the next stage of the plan.”
There they were; drawing them slowly out, Mal laid one glass charm on the desk, and then another. She cut two lengths of red ribbon and tied them into bracelets; crude work, but it’d do.
“It looks nice to me,” said Ianitor. “I like the red. It reminds me-”
“Of blood, yeah, you’re a demon, I get it.”
“Oh, you wound me, little murderer! I have more dimensionality than that!” A pause. “It reminds me of fresh blood. A true connoisseur knows to be specific.”
Mal let out a groan, turning to a long sigh, deflating her down, down, down until her face rested on the counter. She used to like murder mysteries; there was always a charm to the villains, wasn’t there? They could juggle like a million twists and still have time to trade their little quips. They never seemed stressed at all; it was unrealistic, that’s what it was!
Playing human again, Alcor makes it longer than he usually does. He's in college now, juggling classes, family, a curious vampire, and a strange, increasingly sinister web of mysteries weaving themselves around him. Without his omniscience to guide the way, he'll have to work hard to get to the bottom of this before it spirals out of control.
Big Pine, California had not been a bustling city before the Transcendence. A sleepy settlement nestled against the snowcapped Palisades, it had been sheltered from the blast that turned the rest of Inyo County into an archipelago.
(Even the big tree it had been named for survived the Incident, which would have delighted Alcor if it hadn’t technically been a sequoia. The universe just loved ruining things for him, didn’t it?)
Because it remained so intact, it ended up a staging ground for rescue efforts, a temporary--soon permanent--regional capital, and a popular spot for displaced locals to settle into. With the obliteration of Los Angeles and its thirsty aqueducts, the Owens Lake filled again, and over the years its population swelled to the tens of thousands.
It wasn’t a megacity by any means, but to Dipper, living in the woods thirty minutes from a grocery store, going here always felt like Vegas. It was where they always went for stuff you couldn’t get in town--crematory parts, nice birthday gifts… neurologists.
And so, once again, Dipper found himself sitting in a colourful waiting room with his mother. He was rubbing his temple; she put a hand on his arm.
“Stop doing that. You’re making me anxious.”
Dipper wanted to argue, but one glance at her pale face and he held his tongue. He looked for the magazines, but found only kids’ toys and picture books.
“Huh,” Picking up a copy of Silly Billy’s Big Brain, he eyed the thick cardboard pages. “I never noticed how, uh, kiddy this place is.”
“You say that every time, dear.”
“Heh, I guess so. But seriously, am I supposed to, like, find another neurologist now, or-?”
“Oh, don’t ask her that, please.” She made a face. “As long as she keeps taking our bookings, I don’t care what her waiting room looks like.”
“I mean, I don’t care about her waiting room either, I just-”
“Just what?”
He hesitated. “Just… nothing.” He said, and then looked away. “It’s fine, Mom.”
And so they both sat, rigid and silent, until the sound of footsteps echoed from behind a door. Dipper looked up, and as he did his eyes did the thing again; he caught a glimpse of a nurse with a clipboard reaching for the door handle and--agh, shit, he squeezed his eyes closed before the pain spiked too bad.
eeeeeeeeeee…
“...Quicksilver?” A voice was saying. Hands on his shoulders--his mother’s hands.
“Yes, we’ll be just a second!” She softened her voice. “Are you alright? Did it happen again?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m…” He forced his eyes open, and smiled at her. “I’m fine. Just a small one, don’t worry.”
“Oh, my poor guy.” She cupped his cheek, then offered a hand. “Come on.”
The nurse looked exactly the same as he’d seen through the door. He gave a sympathetic smile. “This way, Mr Quicksilver.”
Measured, weighed, quizzed. The blood pressure sleeve slipped off his arm, and the nurse stepped back.
“Alright, I’ll let Dr. Deinolis know you’re ready for her. She’ll be with you soon.”
And then he was gone, leaving Dipper sitting on the exam table next to his mother. She grasped his hand.
“She’ll sort you out, dear.”
“Yeah,” Dipper felt the space where his necklace used to be. “Right.”
His mother pursed her lips; she looked away for a moment, at the friendly posters on the walls. Then she gave a sigh. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” She squeezed his hand. “I wish you’d-”
They were interrupted by a clop-clop-clop; someone stopped outside their door, and knocked a dun-dundun-dun-dun, dun dun!
“Is that Dipper?” said a bright voice. Dipper straightened; he nodded at first, and then he realised.
“Oh, uh, yeah!”
“Great! I’m coming on in!”
And with a crowfooted smile and stickers adorning her ID badge, in trotted Dr. Eirini Deinolis. A dun-coloured pony of a centaur, she still craned her neck to get through the door, her white coat stained with crayon smudges and scrunched up where her back met her withers.
Dipper didn’t remember the first time he’d met Dr. Eirini; her presence, like his Mom and Dad, had always been a constant. She’d seen him first when he was three months old and deathly sick; it was her who figured out a suspected glioblastoma was in fact a mysterious yet eminently manageable case of magical sensitivity. Figuring out the source of this sensitivity had eluded their checkups since then… but hey, if it hadn’t been for her, he may well have been done in by something as dumb as their old magi-light dimmers.
These yearly visits, they’d long ago started feeling… almost familial, like seeing a kindly aunt who sent you birthday cards and told you how big you’d grown. Or at least that was how he thought those things went; like the peninsula they lived on, the Quicksilvers were a shard of a family, a remnant of something larger. Dipper’s Dad was estranged, and his Mom’s parents, along with her sister, died tragically young--some kind of carbon monoxide leak in the crematory, but she never went into detail.
“Hey, Dipper!”
So maybe that was why, despite everything…
“It’s so good to see ya! How’ve you been? Wow, I can’t get over how tall you’ve gotten--like a bean pole, eh, Eva?”
…he felt a weight lifting from his shoulders. As he watched his mother give her a hug that lasted just a moment too long, he wondered if she’d been craving some normalcy, too.
“Ah, it’s good to see you both!” With a pat on the back, Dr. Eirini let her go and clopped over to the desk. “Alright, to business! Let me get my notes pulled up… ah, I noticed you guys moved our appointment up. Something’s changed since last year?”
Dipper couldn’t help but snort--god, what hadn’t? He could see her eyebrow quirk up.
“I see,” she said, her gaze straying lower. “You’re not wearing your necklace.”
His Mom huffed. “Yes, it got broken a few weeks ago. You’ll have to pry the details out of him.”
He felt his cheeks starting to burn, but the doctor didn’t press.
“Aww, that’s a shame! I’ve been fascinated by how well that charm worked; it’s made me pick up glassmaking myself!”
“Really?” He perked up. “Can you-”
“Oh, no, no, I’m still a total amateur. Whatever your sister is doing, it’s far beyond me; I just wish I could understand the mechanism!” Then, with a glance to his Mom: “Did you tell her I wanted to…?”
“It’s not a good time.” she said, flatly. Dr. Eirini’s smile faltered for a moment, and then she carried on.
“Oh, okay! No worries--we’ve managed things without your necklace, we can do it again!” Pulling up her tablet, she started typing away. “We were having some success with lithium before. I could book a blood test to get you started back on that--same clinic in town, right?”
“That’s right!” said his Mom.
“Great!” And she turned to Dipper. “That sound good with you?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah, that’s… fine.” He rubbed his neck. “Just, didn’t that take months to work last time? I don’t want to have to do all that just to have to start stepping down again when Mal finishes the necklace.”
“That’s a fair question. When do you think she’ll finish it?” When he shrugged, she shrugged back. “Then that’s harder for me to answer, really. You could hold out for her to finish if you think it’ll be soon, but in my opinion, it’s not a standardised treatment. The last necklace worked great, but if we don’t know how it worked, there’s no guarantee the replacement is going to be just as effective.”
Dipper grimaced. “Oh. That’s a fun thought.”
“I’m not saying it won’t, it could be great! I just think if that did happen, you might be happy to have gotten the ball rolling on this a little earlier.” A little grin. “Better safe than sorry, right? But of course, it’s your choice.”
His mother gave a gentle squeeze, and he sighed. “Yeah… yeah, that makes sense. Better safe than sorry.”
“It’s always your choice!” She typed a little longer, then turned that sunny smile to his Mom. “Alright, Eva, I just have a few more questions before I wrap up. You alright waiting in the lobby?”
His Mom blinked. “Oh! Uh, okay.”
“Don’t worry, it’s just policy. They want to make sure the university students are being honest, right?”
“Hah! Don’t I wish.” She looked to Dipper. “Okay, sweetie, I’ll be outside. Love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
And she gave a sad sort of smile at that, before she turned and headed outside. Now it felt much more like a doctor’s visit; Dr. Eirini kept typing for a moment, and Dipper straightened, smoothed the creases in his jeans, tried to think of what she was going to ask.
It was obvious, wasn’t it? And yet, when she set aside the tablet, leaned forwards, and asked in a kindly voice, “You doing alright?”--well, all the words in the world seemed to dry up on his tongue.
“Um, hah, uh…” He tried for a little laugh and a shrug, but she didn’t let him off. “You mean, like, medically? The lithium sounds good, uh… that sounds good, yeah.”
She just nodded. The silence stretched; shifting in his seat, Dipper tried to fill it.
“And, uh… yeah, it’s been a weird time, weird time. But I should be fine! Get this headache thing sorted again, and everything should go back to normal--as much as it can, anyway. Just, heh, have to hold out for that, right.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” She tilted her head. “This ‘weird time?’”
“Well… well, what’s there to talk about?” A pause, a laugh. “Uh, I guess. I guess you want to know what happened to the necklace.”
“You can tell me that.”
“Yeah, that was, that was a couple weeks ago. I-I was out with…” he made a face. “Some friends. In the forest, we just were messing around, I tripped, and–yeah.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is that when you got suspended as well?”
Dipper’s head shot up. “What? When did you-”
“It’s alright, your mother told me a bit about that on the phone.” Her face creased into a sad smile. “I read about it on the papers as well… and what happened more recently.”
“Oh.” His heart felt like a rock; of course she knew. “You mean Gemma.”
“It’s awful news, truly awful. It seems like you’ve had a really hard time lately, Dipper; I just want to check that you have someone to talk about it with. Your parents? Your sister?”
He let out a snort, and immediately regretted it. “Uh, hah, sorry, that’s, I didn’t mean it like that.” A grimace. “Mal’s… I knew Gemma, yeah, but she was Mal’s best friend.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, I-I’ve barely seen her since the news broke.”
Dr. Eirini gave a sympathetic nod, and then pressed on. “So you don’t have anybody at home to talk to? How about your friends?”
“Um, yeah, sure, I got… a friend.”
“A friend.” She typed something on her computer as his stomach twisted into knots. “I don’t mean to pry, it just seems like there’s a lot on your shoulders right now. I’m worried about you.”
“Oh–No, no, I’m fine!”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Okay. But I’m going to write down some counselors in your local area. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it’s good to have them on hand if you feel like you want to talk to someone, yeah?”
Dipper sank down in his chair. “Okay,” he managed, then: “Sorry.”
“Oh, no, don’t be sorry. What are you saying sorry for?”
“I don’t know, uh… everything?” He rubbed his neck as she wrote something out. “It feels like I’m making everyone worried about me lately, I-I don’t know how to stop that.”
“Hmm,” she held up a slip of paper. “I have a suggestion.”
“Hah, uh, right.” Cheeks blushing, he stood and took it from her. “I’ll… I’ll think about it. Thanks, Dr. Eirini.”
“Of course.” She rose to her four feet, and smiled down at him. “Well, as always, it’s been a pleasure to see you, Dipper. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about before we go?”
“I don’t think so,” came automatically, but as his mind caught up, he wondered: those visions of within Gemma’s house. How did he do that? Was that related to his condition? They certainly felt like they were, but–
“Are you sure?”
He glanced back at her, and his stomach tightened. No, no, that wasn’t– it was more than just a magical headache, it was like… it was like magic. His fingers tightened on the paper; she’d write it down, she’d send him off to someone else and who knows what they’d think of it? If the police thought he’d seen too much of the crime scene– no, no, no.
“Dipper?”
Her head was tilted now, and he rushed to reassure her. “No! Just thinking, but, yeah, no! Nice to see you too!”
“Okay. As long as you’re sure.”
“Yep!” And he slipped towards the door. “Alright, uh, good talk! Bye!”
“Take care, Dipper.”
Her words echoed as he walked down the hall, his ears ringing. Take care–if only he could. But no, he was in too deep, now.
His fingers crumpled the note into a ball, and he stuffed it into his pocket just as he made it back to his Mom.
The sunset was the most beautiful he would ever see in his life. Bright but not searingly so, bearing all the colors of the rainbow plus a few bonus ones that only bees and art students can see. The two of them sat there in silence for a long while, appreciating and contemplating. As usual, it was Mabel who broke the silence.
“Don’t let your happiness die with me, Dipper. You still have a family after all, and even a dork like you can always make new friends.” At that last bit she elbowed him in the side playfully, kindly ignoring the half-laugh-half-sob the jab elicited.
“It won’t be the same though.” Dipper replied after a breath, not bothering to wipe away his tears anymore.
“Of course it won’t, silly. That’s the neat part about life, it’s always changing!” She giggled, before her face settled back into a more serious expression. “Just… try to find some joy, okay? Do it for me, at least until you learn to do it for yourself.”
Dipper didn’t know quite how to respond to that, so the two sat in silence together once again, until the dreamscape began to fade.
“I love you, brobro.” came Mabel’s tired voice.
“I love you too.” came the demon’s soft reply.
And so the dream ended. She was gone, and he remained, alone.
“Look at what?” Alcor looked back to see the Creature staring in open wonder out of the window; he looked as well, and frowned. “It’s just corn.”
“Corn?”
“You don’t know what corn is?”
“They don’t grow corn in the forest,” she mumbled, and kept staring out of the window. “What does it taste like? Maybe we should stop and try it!”
“I thought you wanted to get on to the desert.”
“I do! But those elves aren’t gonna be jumping us now we’re out of the trees.” She chuckled and shook her head. “Jeez, and it’s so flat, too! Yeah, no elf wants to be out here.”
Alcor gave a wry smile. “Glad to hear that… but, uh, not you?”
She looked at him questioningly, and he cleared his throat.
“I mean, you said you’re an elf, too. If they’re not able to survive in the desert-“
“Survive? Oh, they can survive just fine, and so can I.” She snorted. “Their magic just takes a hit is all, and I don’t need to worry about that.”
“Oh, good to know!”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine out there, same as I was fine in the sewers.” She sat back a little in her seat, bracelets softly jangling. “I’ll survive,” she said, quietly. “That’s what I do.”
There was a wistful edge to that, and he frowned. “Is… that what you want, though?”
“To survive? Uh, yes.”
“No, no, sure, to survive, yeah, but…” he struggled for the right words. “You were, you were living in a sewer-“
“Where else would I live? Above ground?” She shifted in the backseat - constantly shifted, like the space was too small for her. “You’ve seen what I really look like. It’s not gonna happen.”
“I mean, it could happen. People got used to all sorts of creatures after the Transcendence.”
“People got used to some sorts of creatures. Look, your average elf just looks like a human with pointy ears - of course they fit in.”
“But-“
“But we don’t.” She arched an eyebrow. “Come on, man, you know this. You were just telling me about how you disguised yourself as human to go to university. You think they’d have been cool with a demon signing up for classes?”
Alcor opened his mouth - and then he sighed. “No… But you’re not a demon.”
“I might as well be to them.” He saw her in the mirror, staring down at her hands. She caught his look, and tried for a smile. “But look, we don’t have to argue about this - it’s just the way things are, you know?”
“I guess.”
“And it wasn’t like it was some endless torment living in the sewers. I made it my own.” She turned to the window. “You know, I built that cabin you saw in the woods. I used to come out there a lot, just to… to be amongst the trees, to spend a night under the stars. If I can just have a little place like that again, I wouldn’t ask for anything else.”
He watched her look out over the cornfields, that smile on her face slowly fading.
That was all she’d ask for, huh. Alcor wanted to say something else… but what was there to say?
He thought for a moment.
“Well… I could visit?”
“Hm,” she said, not seeming to hear him at first. Then she looked up. “What was that?”
“I could visit - if you want, of course!” He watched her expression. “It’s been kinda, kinda nice, taking this road trip with you. I mean, maybe it’s silly, but-“
“No, no, no.” A new kind of grin was warming her face. “I’d like that.”
Cornfields and grasslands gave way to plains as the night turned to dawn. They talked of things here and there--they even stopped for a whole pack of sodas just outside Oklahoma City--but the more they drove, the quieter the Creature became. Often Alcor felt her stare on him; not so predatory, but… thoughtful.
It was strange. Now that he knew, it didn’t feel anything like hanging out with a Mizar--no, it wasn’t just Mizar she was imitating, Mabel. She looked like Mabel, spoke like Mabel, laughed like Mabel… but man, the longer he spent with her, the more the veneer peeled away from the person behind it.
(And the more he wondered how he’d ever been fooled.)
That thought put a pit in his stomach; Mabel was so much more than a tug on his soul from a girl in a sweater… and yet, that was all he needed to make him believe. Man, he’d been pretty far gone, hadn’t he?
(If he was in a good period, would he have done any better?)
Bracelets jingled in the back. The Creature shifted in her seat again--always shifted--and in the darkness of a new day, all he could see was the glint of her gaze, the shape of a cheek silhouetted against the window.
They were passing into New Mexico when they hit the end of the AC dial. Grass had long given way to shrubland, and as the Creature wound down her window to a blast of hot air from a cloudless sky, she couldn’t help but voice the obvious.
“Uh, I think we’re here.”
Alcor glanced at her through his mirror. “Here?”
“Yeah, this looks pretty desert to me… what?” She frowned at his chuckle. “What?”
“You want me to drop you off here? Like here here, on the side of the highway?”
“Well, duh, not here. We’re coming up on a city, right?” They passed a sign listing ALBERQUEUE 150 MI. “See, look, sign. If there’s a sign, it’s close!”
“You, uh… you can read, right?”
“Hey, rude! Of course I can read.” Bracelets jangled as she huffed and crossed her arms. “Elvish, mostly. These human ones fly by too fast. Why?”
“Well, let’s just say I’m not dropping you off to walk along the highway in ninety degrees? I think that would actually be the thing to kill you.”
“Fine, then drop me off in that place you said, Albert something!”
“I could do that…”
“Yes?” Her eyebrow arched. “What, you have somewhere else in mind?”
Alcor gave a shrug, flashed a fanged smile. “Well, if it’s all the same to you… I think I’ve got an idea.”
“An idea?”
“Just! Just trust me, yeah? It won’t be too much longer!”
“Trust you,” the Creature echoed. A little grin tugged at her lips, and she sat back. “Huh. Alright.”
And so they drove on. On and on, past Alberqueque and back into baking flatlands. Power lines and the odd truck stop were all that followed them for miles, but slowly, all around them, the desert began to rise. Alcor saw the Creature staring openmouthed at the red canyon ridges rising all around them, and he grinned; as the sunlight waned, he steered them towards an overlook point and turned in.
“We’re stopping? Are we here?”
“Almost, almost- come on!” Alcor took out the keys. “You gotta see it before the sun goes down!”
“See what?” The Creature watched him jump out. “What are we seeing?”
Following him out, the two of them found themselves staring down at a small town huddled in a great red-rock canyon, the colour glowing in the golden light. The clouds dappling the sky had turned a soft orange, mixing with the dusty blue like a painting--like a painting, that phrase turning over in Alcor’s mind as he took in the scene. But it was more than that; leaves rustled all around him, lights came on in the town below, things moved and breathed and changed in the way they always did… in the ways he found so easy to forget.
But for a moment, shielding his eyes from the sunlight peeking through a bush, that thought felt so far away from him. For a moment, he wasn’t some demon, but a part of this world, a part of this scene: just a guy on a road trip, showing his friend something cool.
And by the look on her face--well, omniscience had its perks. He grinned.
“You like it?”
“It’s…” The Creature glanced at him, but her gaze slid back to the view, like she couldn’t keep her eyes off it. “I didn’t know deserts could look like this.”
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
“It’s beautiful.” Her voice trembled a little. “This… this is where you wanted to take me?”
“Well, I was thinking about what you said. How you’d like to live somewhere with nature--well, here’s some nature, right?” He gave a little laugh. “Welcome to Sedona. That’s the little town down there.”
“Sedona.” He watched her look down; her shoulders slumped a little. “It is… small. This place is great, but I don’t know if it could sustain me. Is there a bigger city nearby?”
“Do you want to live near a city?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not really, no. But it just doesn’t math out otherwise--it was hard finding enough magi-orbs in New York.”
He watched her heave a sigh, and turn around.
“Well… this was really cool. You know, the way elves talk about deserts, I was pretty sure I was signing up to live in a wasteland the rest of my life. Knowing places like this exist…” Glancing back, she gave a sad smile. “Well, maybe I can visit sometime.”
And then she turned to head back to the car, but Alcor had other plans. He couldn’t keep a grin off his face as he caught her shoulder.
“What?” She studied his face, his hand ducking behind his back. “What?”
“Well, just hypothetically… what if you could live somewhere like here?”
“Uhhh, how would that work?”
“I mean, if you didn’t have to rely on magi-orbs. That would be pretty good, right?”
“Where are you going with this?”
And to that, Alcor drew out a fist-sized, glowing sphere of energy. It shimmered in the dying light, lighting up the Creature’s wide eyes.
“Is that…?”
“A bit of my magic, yeah!” He met her look with a grin. “It makes sense, right? You eat magic, I've got more than I know what to do with--it's a win-win!”
“I… I can’t accept this. I’d be eating you.”
“And what’s a little cannibalism between friends, right?”
“I’m serious!”
“Hey, so am I!” He held it out. “Look, I have pretty much an infinite supply of magic, you’re not gonna drain me dry. Come on, take it!”
He waited a moment, but when she didn’t reach out he dropped it into her hands. She flinched and gripped it tight, turning it over with an unreadable expression.
“This is… oh, my stars. I don’t know what to say.”
“Hey, I told you I’d get you somewhere safe. All part of the deal, right?” He chuckled, but her eyes were welling with tears. He felt a lump in his throat as well. “We, uh… we gotta look out for each other, right? You’ve helped me too. More than… more than you know.”
She looked up at that, and wiped her eyes. Then, she spoke quietly.
“Can I have a pen and paper?” She said. The question caught him off guard; he blinked at her for a moment.
“Pen and…? Oh, uh, okay.” Summoning them from thin air, he handed them to her and watched her spread it over her knee. “Oh, do you need a clipboard as well, or…? What are you writing?”
She didn’t respond. Finishing with a flourish, she held it out to him, and stayed silent as he began to read. It was strange how the paper seemed to change: spotless in her hands, as soon as it passed to him it was like he suddenly noticed a grimey crinkle at the top, the grip of a hand far larger than his own. He expected her writing to be messy, but the top part was actually a beautiful cursive, written in a script that seemed almost to float off the page.
Elvish words sang in his mind, but their rough translation also echoed in a second, shakier message underneath:
THAИK YOU
“I wanted to say that to you myself,” he looked up as the Creature spoke again, her hands clasped in front of her sparkly sweater. “Without the… the filters you see me through.”
Those words hung in the air between them. A gust of wind kicked up, and Alcor clutched the page to his chest as it passed. He read it over again, a smile warming his throat.
“Thank you… yeah, we had a good time together, huh?” His eye caught on another Elvish line at the bottom; he pointed it out. “What does this say?”
“Thalia,” she said. “You wanted to know my name, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yeah! Thalia…” Something about that sounded familiar, but he couldn’t pin it down. “I like it! It’s a nice name.”
She beamed. “It’s been a long time since I needed it; nearly forgot how it’s spelled. But hey, that handwriting--not bad after a couple centuries in a sewer, eh?”
“No, hah, it’s better than mine! How do you hold the pen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, with the,” he mimed the shape of her claws. “I thought that would make it hard.”
“Not really.” She crossed her arms. “Yours aren’t so trimmed either--how do you hold a pen?”
“My nails aren’t that long. I just…” Alcor summoned a pen between his fingers, and immediately felt his claws clack against the plastic. “Wait, I- huh, I never noticed they… oh, this is like the stupid manual breathing thing, I- I could do it if I wasn’t thinking about it!”
Thalia snickered, and as night fell in the desert, anyone driving by wouldn’t look twice at a pair of friends sitting together on the hood of their car, looking out over the valley as the constellations came alive.
Mizar shimmered far above, but tonight, she was just a star in a beautiful sky.
Hehe I got commissioned by @toothpastecanyon to draw Mal and Dipper from his fic "Return, to the Scene of the Crime" (which you should totally check out if you're into TAU no im not biased what are you talking about)!!
Playing human again, Alcor makes it longer than he usually does. He's in college now, juggling classes, family, a curious vampire, and a strange, increasingly sinister web of mysteries weaving themselves around him. Without his omniscience to guide the way, he'll have to work hard to get to the bottom of this before it spirals out of control.
The first thing Xiaofan needed was a change of clothes; her face was so red Lucy Ann thought she was going to pass out. Of course Šikkû had spares--disappearing into her tunnel system, she came out with some beautifully embroidered silk clothing that fit her perfectly.
“That should be a little better,” Šikkû said, coming back with a cup of water. “Do you need something to eat? I’d have to go into town for that; I’m sure you can understand Sagar and I don’t have much use for food.”
Xiaofan sat stiffly on the couch. “Sagar?” She asked, arching an eyebrow. Lucy Ann raised a finger.
“A name I used to go by. A long time ago.”
“How long?”
The question caught her off guard. “Ancient Sumeria,” she said, and watched Xiaofan choke on her water. “About six thousand years ago now.”
“Jeez, that… that is a long time.” She glanced at Šikkû. “Is that where you’re from, too?”
“Me? Oh, no, I’m a thousand years her junior--palû Babili, in the reign of Apil-Sîn.” And when that didn’t ring a bell: “Ancient Babylon. You are still taught of the Code of Hammurapi in school? I was born when his grandfather was… well, not king, before Hammurapi it was a much smaller-”
Lucy Ann sensed a tangent. “We’re old,” she said. “Does that answer your question?”
“Uh…” Xiaofan’s eyes were wide. “Yeah, I guess, that’s just… hard to imagine. And you’re even older than her? Even though you look like…?”
Her gaze strayed to Lucy Ann’s feet dangling off the edge of the couch. Šikkû snorted--Lucy Ann crossed her arms.
“Yes, yes. We don’t choose how old we look.”
“I can see that,” and a ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Six thousand years looking like a primary schooler? No wonder you’re such a jerk.”
That made Šikkû break out into a full cackle. Lucy Ann tried for a grin; she had a sinking feeling that swipe might be a bit deserved.
“Hah, uh, yeah,” she shot a look at Šikkû before turning back. “So what happened the night you got arrested? I’m guessing there’s more to that story.”
“There’s no story, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell people!” Xiaofan’s face darkened. “I never even met that Collins guy. After I came home from that lovely night in the forest with you, I talked to Gemma, then I went to sleep. Next thing I know, I’m being woken up by a fucking SWAT team with my window shot out and stolen jewels on my nightstand!”
“Shit,” Lucy Ann’s face softened. “I’m sorry that happened. I knew something wasn’t adding up.”’
“Yeah, but did you do anything about it?”
And Xiaofan looked her straight in the eye. Lucy Ann struggled to do the same. “I…” she started. “Me and Dipper, we were working on it… but I could’ve done more, I know. And I was a real asshole to you that night in the forest--I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you were, weren’t you.” After a moment, she looked away. “Hmph… It’s fine. I wasn’t expecting you to help me; for the longest time, I thought it was you that set me up. No, the real assholes were the police.”
There was a bitterness in her voice; her hands tightened on the glass as she continued.
“I knew it looked bad, but they… they didn’t even give me a chance. This one lady, she--I’ll never forget it, she laughed at me in the interview room. Fucking handcuffed to the table, my whole future in her hands, a-and she’s acting like I’m some, some jilted girlfriend!” Xiaofan imitated her voice. “Aww, honey, you don’t have to lie for him! And they’re the ones who’re gonna bring Gemma’s killer to justice? No, they’ll say it’s you and be done with it. That’s what Mallory does--she feeds them an easy story so they don’t have to do their damn jobs.” Her lip curled. “Can’t believe it was my dream to work for them. Embarrassing.”
Lucy Ann looked at the lines on Xiaofan’s face, the anger and disillusionment that so estranged her from that bright-eyed freshman who tagged along in the forest. It was just a few short months ago, wasn’t it?
“What happened after that?” She asked, quietly. Xiaofan’s shoulders tensed… and then sagged in one defeated sigh.
“What next, well… got expelled, got my visa cancelled, still on the hook for all those fucking loans. My parents are helping me to appeal it, but since the police didn’t bother to look that hard, what evidence do I have? As far as the Federation’s concerned, they were being nice by not charging me.” She slumped in her seat, staring down at the floor. “And even if I somehow got to go back, I’m a campus joke. Everyone thinks I was hiding a dangerous criminal in their dorms--they think he’s my boyfriend! Do you know how many people have messaged me jokes about Stockholm Syndrome? How many people I thought I’d made friends with were furious I didn’t get locked away forever? One of my old dorm mates, she keeps making new accounts to send me that news article about the Collins guy dying in a gas explosion--because she thinks he’s my boyfriend! How messed up is that?”
“Jesus,” Lucy Ann breathed. Šikkû laid a box of tissues on the table; Xiaofan scowled as she touched her watering eyes
“Ugh, and now I’m… I-I hate fucking crying about it, I…” Her voice shuddered as she took one, and blew her nose. “Thanks. Anyway, it’s- everyone hates me, you get it. Th-the only people who believed me were the people in Demonology 101. Gemma, she, sh-she said she wasn’t gonna give up on me, that everything was gonna be alright. They all got expelled to clear my name, Gemma g-got…”
Silent tears welled up in Xiaofan’s eyes; she stayed stoic, sniffing, wiping them away again and again. Lucy Ann sighed--she gave her a moment, and then leaned in.
I’m so sorry,” she said. “She sounds like she was a great friend.”
“She was.” Xiaofan said, and then shook herself. “But more to the point, she was a great investigator. The night she died, she called me. She figured it out.”
“What did she find?”
Xiaofan made a face. “It’s… I don’t know exactly. You see, we were looking for a demon summoner, and the first thing a summoner’ll do if they know someone’s onto them is ask their demon what we know. I didn’t like this at the time, but shortly before I got framed, Gemma summoned a minor knowledge demon to come up with a code to, uh, encrypt our discussions. As long as we spoke and wrote in the code this demon came up with, we could be sure the summoner wouldn’t be able to tell what we knew about them.”
“Huh,” Šikkû nodded. “A smart precaution.”
“It had its pros and cons. If I could go back, I would’ve had us make a bigger deal; the code it gave us was quite restrictive to talk in.” Xiaofan made a face. “And whatever Gemma discovered, it was way outside of what we’d usually been discussing. And she only spoke to me, she didn’t want to share it with the others.”
“What did she say?”
“Somehow… she figured out that Dipper’s sister was there the night I was framed.” Xiaofan shook her head. “We always knew she was the one who asked for my address, but she was supposed to be miles away in New Angeles, she couldn’t have been anything but an unwitting participant… or so Gemma thought.” A sigh, long and heavy. “Mallory was her best friend. I’m sure that factored in, too.”
And Dipper’s sister, Lucy Ann thought with a grimace. If only she still had that summoning paper.
“Anyway,” Xiaofan continued. “It wasn’t the longest conversation, I didn’t-, it still seemed like such a minor detail compared to all the evidence we had on you. It wasn’t until… until that morning, when none of us could reach her. And then we, w-we found out…” A hard swallow, and then she set her jaw. “We found out she’d been killed. She’d already figured out you were in Iraq, and suddenly it was all so clear to me. We’ve been wasting our time chasing you when she’s right under our noses!”
Lucy Ann’s stomach sank. “You were framed with the stuff from the jewelry store,” she murmured. “If Mal had that-”
“Then she was part of the heist, too. And what do you know--apparently Mallory used to be friends with Collins.” Xiaofan’s lip curled. “And his car was left at her house, her crematorium. According to their website, business has been going pretty well since Mallory took over. Some kind of new ‘direct cremation service’ that I only found a dead email address for.”
“You think…?”
“All I know is, Gemma loved Mallory--every time she brought her up, she’d just gush about her. And Mallory murdered her.” Xiaofan’s face was ashen. “Murdered her, and staged her dead body. When I think about the kind of person who could do that, and then I think about what could be inside that crematorium… Gemma could be the tip of the iceberg.”
The thought put a rock in Lucy Ann’s stomach. Oh, this could be so much worse than Noie.
“Actually,” came a voice from across the room; she’d almost forgotten about Šikkû, who was on her magi-orb, stroking a cat on her lap. “It’s not likely she’s killed anyone besides this Gemma. Not in her local area, anyways.”
Xiaofan leaned over, and raised an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”
“I’m just looking up missing cases in the county--you say she has a crematorium, so it’s likely a spree of murders would show up as a spree of disappearances.” Šikkû kept scrolling. “There was a local one a couple years ago, I grant you, but unless this Mallory is driving up and down the Federation, I don’t see a pattern emerging.”
“Okay, so she’s not a serial killer, just a murderer. What’s your point?”
Lucy Ann cut in. “Šikkû doesn’t mean anything by it; she just likes to find things out. You’re right: whatever the extent of this is, it’s already… I’ve gotta talk to Dipper.”
“No!” Xiaofan’s hand shot out. “She killed her best friend to silence her--you could be putting him in danger!”
Unlikely, Lucy Ann almost said; she kept that to herself, but something in her face still betrayed her. She could see a flicker in Xiaofan’s eyes--dammit.
“Okay,” Lucy Ann tried to speak evenly. “I see the logic in that… I’ll go back to California, then. The police might not listen to me, but I could break into the crematorium, see if there’s something incriminating there, and tip them off. Make them raid it guns blazing, so she doesn’t have time to cover it up.”
“You don’t have to go there,” Šikkû added. “We could spoof a phone call. I can pretend to be a concerned local…?”
“But if she’s not hiding anything in the crematorium, we’ve made it a million times harder to call them out again. Besides,” Lucy Ann glanced Xiaofan’s way; she still had that glint in her eye. “Not that I don’t believe you, but I want to see this for myself before we start trying to get Mal arrested for murder.”
Xiaofan took a moment to respond. “Yes,” she spoke slowly, deliberately. “It’s important to be absolutely sure. That’s why I’m going with you.”
“Wh- wait, going with me?” Lucy Ann shook her head. “No, no, that’s way too risky. You’ll be in a world of trouble if you get arrested.”
“As will you. You’re literally the Federation’s most wanted right now.”
“Yeah, but they’re not gonna catch me.” She arched an eyebrow. “And more importantly, I don’t die when you stab me. Kind of important when you’re investigating a murderer, don’t you think?”
Xiaofan narrowed her eyes. “I’m coming with you.”
“You-”
“I’m coming with you, or you’re going to tell me what’s up with Dipper Quicksilver.”
And that stopped Lucy Ann in her tracks. To the side, she could hear Šikkû gasp like she was watching a good movie; Xiaofan’s eyes cut to her.
“So there is something up with him!”
Lucy Ann scowled. “Thanks, Šikkû.”
“Yeah, like I couldn’t already read it on your face.” Xiaofan stood up. “Listen, I’m not an idiot, there’s no way some ancient vampire from Sumeria is hanging around a college student for no reason. I told you everything, but you still don’t trust me, do you? You’re still keeping something from me!”
“It’s- It’s complicated, okay?” Lucy Ann gave a shrug. “It doesn’t matter for what we’re doing.”
“He’s Mallory’s brother. Is he involved? Is that-”
“No, no, whatever Mal’s mixed up in, he doesn’t know about that!”
“Then what does he know? Why are you interested in him?”
“It’s not relevant.” When Xiaofan leaned in, she stood firm. “I’m sorry, but I’m not telling you. It’s not my place.”
Xiaofan stood there for a moment, arms crossed. Then she shrugged. “Hmph… fine. Keep your secrets, but I’m coming with.”
“It really isn’t necessary.”
“If you can’t trust me, I can’t trust you. It’s that simple.”
“It’s not that I don’t-”
“It’s fine if you don’t, but that’s how it is.” Her fists tightened. “Truth is, I’d rather come. Gemma died trying to clear my name. I don’t want to sit on the other side of the world sending more people to solve my problems.”
Lucy Ann sighed. “That’s… I can respect that. It’d still be better for me to go on my own, but if your mind’s made up,” She stuck out a hand. “Can we, uh, do a fresh start on this?”
Xiaofan took her hand. “I think we can,” she said, and a slight smile graced her tired face. “Thanks. For listening to me.”
“And thank you, for telling me. I’m really sorry you got mixed up in this.”
“Well, one way or the other, I won’t have to worry about my current problems when this is all over.” She glanced over at Šikkû, who was hovering to the side. “What about you? Are you coming with us?”
“Me? coming?” Šikkû blinked, and then broke out into hearty laughter. Lucy Ann gave a wry smile.
“Šikkû’s, ah, not big into travelling.”
“Oh.”
“No, heh, I’m afraid I’m firmly a scholar these days, but,” Šikkû gave a kindly smile. “You’re welcome to any of the tools I have at my disposal. And… Xiaofan, was it?”
“Uh, yes?”
“What are your plans after this is over? You were interested in demonology?”
“Assuming I don’t get killed or thrown in jail?” Xiaofan gave a cynical snort. “I don’t even know. Everything’s changed so much, I’m not sure what I even want to do anymore. Definitely not forensic demonology.”
“Hmm. Well, if you ever need help choosing a new path, my home is open to you.”
Lucy Ann blinked. What was Šikkû doing? Xiaofan seemed to have the same question.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve quite impressed me today, child. You’re clearly very sharp, and you’re every bit as tenacious as Sagar. It pains me to think you’ll be held down by so many unfortunate circumstances.” Šikkû gestured around her house. “Sagar and I, we’ve chosen different paths. She has seen more of the world than I ever will, but I am a scholar of many, many disciplines. Anything you could think to learn, I can teach you.”
Xiaofan’s eyes widened. “Wh- really?”
“It would be my pleasure. It has been a long time since I’ve taken on a student.”
Lucy Ann couldn’t help but snort. “You’re literally a college professor, Šikkû.”
“Oh, yes, right, I should hold more lectures… but that reminds me!” She grinned. “I’m a professor as well. Of history, but they give me much leeway owing to my background. Whatever I teach you, I could make sure it ends up as a degree.”
Xiaofan looked around, her wide wide eyes catching on the craftwork outside, the server down the hall, the heavy tomes stacked up on a side table each penned by a Dr. Zahra Hazem. “That’s…” she said quietly. “A generous offer. I-I’ll have to think on that.”
“There is no rush.”
“Yes… yes, I need to focus on the mission.” Picking past the cats, Xiaofan strode into the hallway. “We’ll need to summon another demon to get back to California--do you have chalk? Some warding pens would be useful as well, and what kind of tech do you have? We could use…”
Lucy Ann leaned over to Šikkû. “‘Every bit as tenacious as Sagar’--is that a compliment, or were you calling me a pain in the ass?”
Šikkû gave a slight smile. “It depends on the context.” Then she turned to look at Lucy Ann. “Stay safe, my old friend. This Mallory character troubles me.”
“Yeah, I wish Xiaofan weren’t coming. I’d feel much better if it was just me.”
“And I’m glad you’re not going alone.”
“Wh-” Lucy Ann chuckled, but Šikkû’s face was grave. “I’ll be fine, okay? Don’t worry about me.”
But Šikkû only repeated, “Stay safe,” before walking away down the hall. A shiver passed through Lucy Ann; her one hand brushed the glove on the other, and then she hurried to catch up with the both of them.
Playing human again, Alcor makes it longer than he usually does. He's in college now, juggling classes, family, a curious vampire, and a strange, increasingly sinister web of mysteries weaving themselves around him. Without his omniscience to guide the way, he'll have to work hard to get to the bottom of this before it spirals out of control.
[hey darling HUGE news about LA! Call me when you can xxx]
07:38
MISSED CALL
VOICEMAIL
[Don’t want to explain too much on the phone but let’s just say it’s gonna be a bit harder to track her down 😅]
[Gonna need to make some decisions, haha! 😆]
09:49
CALL SILENCED
VOICEMAIL
09:56
[I know you’re still mad Dipper, totally understandable!! But this is a huge lead and I really really want to coordinate with you on this xxx]
[Gotta think about flight tickets ♥️♥️♥️]
[You’ll have to go since I can’t]
[Jealous!!!! 😂]
CALL SILENCED
CALL SILENCED
11:45
CALL SILENCED
12:06
[Aww you’re gonna make me come up there aren’t you 😅]
12:34
CALL SILENCED
12:56
MISSED CALL
14:32
[Hey Gemma, sorry I missed all this. And sorry it got a bit weird at the end there, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about my Dad]<
14:47
MISSED CALL
[Happy to call anytime!]<
[Oh and Mom says thanks for the fruit basket]<
16:29
MISSED CALL
VOICEMAIL
[Just wanted to follow up since it seemed fairly urgent!]<
[Marsh and I are really interested to hear about the Lucy Ann lead]<
[She left the country I’m guessing?]<
18:37
[Hey, sorry if I’m texting you a lot. I just got my thoughts together a bit after this afternoon. It was definitely weird that Mal didn’t tell you about Dad. I’ve been really worried about her actually, she hasn’t been acting like herself.]<
20:17
[I don’t know if I should tell you this but you’re her best friend.]<
[She’s been pulling out her hair and wearing a charm to hide it.]<
20:22
[And she wants to be co owner of the funeral home now? Like you see that’s crazy too, that’s never been Mal. It feels like she’s just decided this is her life now and it’s killing her but I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to make her talk to me, she bites my head off when I try haha.]<
[Sometimes I feel like she's gonna hit me haha]<
20:35
[I just feel like I failed her]<
[you’re right, I don’t listen to people enough]<
[i didnt support her enough when dad got sick and now i dont knjw if its too late to]<
20:47
[Um anyway, sorry for the huge dump, I didn’t mean to write that much haha]<
[Just as I said I am really worried about her. It’s totally understandable if you’re mad at her, but I really think Mal needs people in her corner right now.]<
21:03
It was an all-hands meeting in their bedroom that evening: papers spread out on the bottom bunk, dinners going cold on the desk. He’d dug out his ancient highschool laptop to video call Marsh, and she was watching him pace the floor.
“Doesn’t make any sense,” he was muttering. Mal, sifting through the documents laid out on the bed, was an obstacle for him to avoid. “Why would she encode that? I don’t get it.”
“You’ve solved it already?” Marsh’s voice came through staticky. When Dipper kept pacing, she looked to Mal. “He solved it? What does it say?”
Mal took a moment to pick up a page. When she looked up, she was all smiles. “He sure did! Dipper’s all about this secret code shit, it was all he read about in middle school! Look, he’s got…” She pointed to his book case. “Like a million of these codebreaker books. Real nerd stuff, too; man, I think this one’s just a straight up textbook. You read this for fun, dude?”
Dipper didn’t respond beyond a distracted hum. With a chuckle, Mal brushed past him to get to the computer.
“Here, I’ll type it up for you. I don’t know how Dipper got this message out of the gobbledygook Gemma sent; it must’ve been some complicated code!”
“Huh?” Finally, Dipper glanced over. “Oh, no. It was a simple keyword cipher--you could’ve generated it on the internet in two seconds.”
“Oh, now you share with the class.” Mal rolled her eyes. “If it was so simple, why’d it take you a whole day to figure it out?”
“It didn’t take me a whole day, it took me like, half an hour.”
“Oh, suuure.”
“It’s true!”
Mal opened her mouth, but Marsh cut in: “Okay, okay! Can we stay focused, guys? What did Gemma say?”
“Hmph.” Mal stepped away from the laptop. “If you’re so smart, you don’t need me.”
“Uh, okay, okay.” Dipper cleared his throat. A bit of a grin crept up his face; of course this was serious, but when did he ever get to talk about codebreaking without putting someone to sleep? “So what Gemma did was encode the message in a keyword cipher. The whole idea is you shuffle up the letters based on a keyword, and in theory, nobody should be able to crack the code unless they have the keyword you used.”
Marsh nodded. “In theory?”
“Yeah, it’s actually pretty simple to break with frequency analysis- but look, you hardly even have to do that!” He held a printed copy of the text up to the camera. “You see the E’s are capitalised? That just means all the E’s are actually I’s.” He couldn’t help but laugh. “She even left in the apostrophes! This thing was begging to get solved.”
“Yeah, yeah, so Gemma fucked up her code,” Mal’s tone was snippy. “We get it, can you tell Marsh what it says already?”
“Sorry, alright. Here.”
And he quickly pasted a copy of the text into chat:
Ciao darling xxx Am sorry about yesterday, just had a xxx Big brainwave about the case! xxx I think I know where LA is. xxx Now this is suuuper important, I’m going 2 try catch her but if I don’t come back in 24 hours, let the cops know xxx
Dipper watched her eyes scan across the message. After a moment, she said: “Twenty four hours. She didn’t give you a lot of time to crack it.”
“She kn-, knows it’s Dipper’s thing,” Mal gave him a clap on the shoulder. “I used to brag about this guy, haha!”
“Yeah, that’s probably why she didn’t make it too hard, but…” He tapped a pen against his chin. “Why encode it at all, then?”
A shrug from Mal. “She’s on house arrest. Maybe she didn’t want to tip the cops off?”
“Wait, yeah, she’s on house arrest.” Marsh frowned. “She’s really risking a lot, here.”
“And she’s got an ankle monitor on,” murmured Dipper. “It’s so strange. Earlier she was implying Lucy Ann was out of the country, but there’s no way she could go far with that thing. They’d pick her up.”
“She must’ve found some new information.” Mal crossed her arms. “Something to suggest she was local. And strong enough for her to risk breaking bail.”
The room was silent for a moment; contemplation was thick in the air. Dipper found himself gnawing at his pen--it clicked in his mouth, and his eyes widened.
“M’b-” He took the pen out. “Sorry, I mean, maybe Lucy Ann came to her?”
Mal raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“That’s why it’s a weird hour. That’s why it’s coded--it was just to keep Lucy Ann from seeing it. And then…” A frown; it wasn’t coalescing as he liked. “She left, maybe? And Gemma followed her, she didn’t want to lose track of her.”
“So she asked you to keep tabs--that makes sense.” Mal was nodding; Marsh frowned.
“Well, it’s been almost a whole day. Has anyone heard from her?”
“Nope,” said Mal, popping the P. Dipper checked his phone.
“I’ve been trying to reach out… nothing so far.” There was a pit in his stomach as he looked at his unanswered messages. “It’s not like her to be so quiet. You don’t… Lucy Ann wouldn’t…?”
Marsh shook her head. “No. She didn’t even touch Xiaofan.”
“Yeah… no, no, you’re right.” Dipper let out a breath; he could see Mal arch an eyebrow, but he hurried on. “So-so what do we do about this message? If we go to the police and say Gemma left her house, they won’t be happy with her.”
“Gemmy knows that.” Mal rubbed her cheek. “She wouldn’t have said it if she didn’t know exactly what she was doing.”
“24 hours from… 2am, though?” Marsh’s face was skeptical. “Has anyone checked her house?”
Dipper shook his head. “We’ve had work.”
“Yeah, big funeral today.” Mal eyed the floor. “A lot of work. I say we stick to Gemma’s plan. Twenty four hours, we call the cops.”
“No, we really should check first,” said Marsh. “We’ll get her in a lot of trouble if we’re wrong on this.”
“You think she doesn’t know her own bail conditions?” She shot back. “I’m Gemmy’s best friend; if there’s one thing you gotta know about her, it’s that she’s already thought of whatever you’re thinking of. I mean,” A chuckle. “Her whole plan at that cabin was to take Lucy Ann to the cops. Who’s to say she’s not… I dunno, using the tracker on her ankle monitor to call them down on her, or whatever?”
“You think she’s doing that?”
“No, no, I’m just saying… that’s how she plans, you know? Everything’s got a meaning.” Mal grinned at Dipper. “Right, bro? I mean, she ran circles around you and Lucy Ann.”
Dipper was still staring down at his phone. Those texts he sent last night, all the worries he poured out to her… unanswered. That pit in his stomach didn’t go away; the more he looked at them, the more it grew, the more a terrible feeling of wrongness took hold. This wasn’t like her, it was saying. This wasn’t like her.
eeeeeeee…
“Dipper?” Mal was saying, and he swallowed, hard.
“W-we should, we should check.” He stuffed his phone in his pocket. “On her. On Gemma.”
“Ugh, really?”
“I just, I don’t- Marsh is right.” He tried for a smile. “It makes sense, right? Just to make sure?”
“Hmm,” Mal still seemed to waver. She turned towards the papers on his desk. “What are the x’s?”
“Just to- huh?”
Mal tapped the message:
Ciao darling xxx Am sorry about yesterday, just had a xxx Big brainwave about the case! xxx I think I know where LA is. xxx Now this is suuuper important, I’m going 2 try catch her but if I don’t come back in 24 hours, let the cops know xxx
“Look,” she said. “There’s a lot of x’s in her message.”
Marsh gave a wry smile. “It’s not a Gemma text without them.”
“But they're in weird places, aren't they? One's in the middle of a sentence.” She turned to Dipper. “What'd'you think of that?”
“I don't… that is odd, yeah.” Frowning, he glanced towards the door. “I'll, uh, think about it.”
“You’re still going?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Marsh cut in. “She’s your best friend, Mal, you really don’t want to check up on her?”
“I… no, I just, Gemma…” Mal trailed off, and sighed. “No, no, maybe you guys are right. I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she will be,” said Marsh. “Listen, I’ve got work in a couple hours, so I’m gonna get some sleep in; I’ll keep my phone on. You two let me know if you see her, alright?”
Dipper nodded. Mal mimed a salute. “You got it. Man, a couple hours from now? You’re working late.”
“Tch, yeah, hospitality’s a dream.” Marsh rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you guys later. Good luck.”
Then she hung up. As soon as her face disappeared, Mal rolled her eyes. “Welp, we’ve been given our orders. You know, if we were set on checking up on her, we really should have met earlier.”
Dipper made a face. “Yeahhh, we were busy.”
“Busy, yeah, but we could’ve found the time to meet.” She glanced over at the laptop. “It’s a shame. Marsh is great, but planning around a full-time student with a job’s really slowing us down.”
Dipper didn’t know what to say to that. He patted his pockets; no, the keys were probably downstairs. “I guess… Do you want to drive, or me?”
“It was probably easier when you guys were all in the same dorm, huh?” She gave him a strange smile. “Maybe I’m the one who’s slowing things down.”
“Huh? Oh, no, no! Not at all, Mal, I’m really glad you’re here!”
“Are you sure? I feel like I kind of ticked Marsh off at the end.” She looked away. “Of course I’m worried about Gemma, of course! It’s just, I also know her. We know her! Has Marsh even met her?”
“I know, I know,” Dipper came over; his hand hovered over her shoulder, but he thought better of it. “I don’t think she meant it that way, she’s just-”
“Well if she didn’t mean it that way, why’d she say it?”
“I-!” He struggled for words. “It’s not… I don’t think she…”
“Oh, forget it.” Mal crossed the room to sit on the bed. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to come between you and your special college friends, I’ll just- I’ll try to be less sensitive, I guess.”
“No, no, you don’t-”
She glared at him. “I said forget it. It’s fine, okay?”
Dipper opened his mouth, but the look on her face shut it up. “Okay,” he managed, and stood there awkwardly in the stretching silence. “Uh… okay.”
Mal didn’t respond. Arms crossed, she scowled down at the floor. A pen was lying by her foot; he watched her roll it back and forth with the tip of her shoe, then kick it under the bed.
He cleared his throat. “Well…” He started, and saw her go completely still. “I’m gonna, uh, check on Gemma. Did you want to…?”
She didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t have to. With a gulp, Dipper stepped away.
“Alright… alright, no problem.” He tried for a smile. “I’ll, uh, tell Gemma you said hi!”
Nothing. With a sigh, Dipper turned his back, and made to leave. The door creaked as he swung it upon, but just as he was closing it behind him-
“Hey.”
Mal. Dipper stopped and glanced back. “Yeah?”
She was looking at him with a strange expression, face pale, her eyes glinting, the corners of her lips turned distinctly down. She opened her mouth, but then she seemed to stop herself, and her eyes slipped past him for a moment before refocusing.
“Drive safe.” She said, and managed a smile. “You know I love you, right?”
Dipper smiled back. “I know,” he said. “I love you too… You know, you can talk to me about anything, right?”
“Sure.”
“I mean it.”
“I’ll tell Mom you’re getting snacks.”
“Mal-” Dipper started… but she was sitting there, arms crossed, that placid smile bared like a shield. It was no use. “Okay. I’ll be back soon.”
Then he slipped out and closed the door behind him, leaving Mal to her own devices.
Night driving was the worst. Turning up his radio, Dipper stared out at the winding country road unfolding in his high beams; everywhere else was darkness, and it pressed in ominously. Also pressing in was his headache, and it was an effort to ignore it, to focus.
“Drive safe,” he muttered to himself. “Yeah, Mal, thanks for that. Thank you soooo much.”
Gemma lived up the hill--with her uncle, he wanted to say? It was where all the nice houses were, and indeed, as he climbed, the roads widened, the potholes thinned out. A well-trimmed hedge covered his view of the forest, and streetlights lit his way.
And then: orange signs. SLOW DOWN, they said. UTILITY WORK AHEAD. Cones cut the road in half, and as Dipper crawled his way past the construction, he realised where this was.
“Oh, wow,” he breathed. “It’s completely gone.”
The ruins of the Collins estate left behind by the gas explosion had been taken down completely; Dipper could see stars through the clearing. Dark shapes of construction vehicles loomed in the flashing orange lights, and the last shreds of police tape fluttered from the open iron gates. A deep, dark pit had been dug in the road just in front, like a grave.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
It was so still, here. So… empty. Not the radio nor the hum of the engines could dim the deafening silence; the lights of the houses just a little further on felt a million miles away, and he… he wanted to reach them.
He had to go.
He had to get out of here.
Dipper didn’t know why a sudden fear seized him, but he stepped on the accelerator. The car lurched forwards; he didn’t speed, but his knuckles went white as he resisted the urge. The last of the cones were coming up, just five… four, three two-
Pain shot like lightning through his skull; half a second later, something came flying out of the hedges, he started to turn but BANG!
The whole car lurched; Dipper lurched with it and his head smacked the side. Stars were all he saw, pain was all he felt. He covered his face and just tried to ride it out.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEIEEEEEEEEEEEEEWANTEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEETELLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…
eeeeeeshoweeeeeeeeeeeeeyoueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
And as the pounding, throbbing, pressing agony slowly faded, Dipper cracked open his eyes. His head was still killing him, but he had to look around, had to see what on earth that was!
It was… it was gone.
Opening his door, Dipper staggered over to the side of his car, expecting to see a big dent but- no. Nothing. The only thing damaged was a cone squished under his front tire.
“Oh…” Dipper managed. “Well that’s just… just great, that’s-”
And then he threw up on the hood of his car. Great. Yeah, something else going wrong, he really needed that. When he finished, knees wobbling, head swimming, he grappled the side of the car as he staggered back in.
“Awesome, awesome, love this, love this…” He sat back, hands up, waiting for the world to stop spinning. “Drive safe-thanks Mal, fucking thanks. Agh, how long is that stupid necklace gonna take, stupid…”
And he just dissolved into muttering, anything to get his mind off the way his eyes felt like they were being shoved out of their sockets.
Slowly, mercifully, it was fading. The sound of the radio was coming back, along with another sound. Distant sirens didn’t register much in his mind as he dug for his phone; the brightness made him squint, but he was in no shape to drive. Maybe his mom could… huh.
Those sirens were getting close. He could see lights flickering from the edge of the clearing; they turned, and suddenly they were right behind him. Did someone see him crash?
As he sat there, they pulled right up to them, and the sirens were deafening, the red-red-blue-blue flash triggering his headache all over again. He could see through his mirror the guy was reaching for something, were they-
“HEY,” Boomed a voice from a speaker. “YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. ARE YOU BLIND? MOVE YOUR VEHICLE.”
Oh, shit. Dipper scrambled to pull over to the side; the cop tailgated him all the way, and then released one last blast from the horn as it passed. He raised his eyebrows; gee, thanks, man.
As he watched it speed down the road, though, he couldn’t feel too bad. There was obviously some kind of emergency, he hoped it wasn’t anything too-
He watched its indicators flick on. Before his eyes, the police car turned down Gemma’s lane, and his stomach dropped.
No. No, surely not.
(Surely not what?)
Dipper didn’t realise he was following until he was inching forwards. He braked for a second, hesitated… and then hit the accelerator. His car shuddered over the last of the cones, then he made it to the turn.
Looking down the road, the cruiser was still there, parked, lights flashing just in front of Gemma’s house. Dipper’s eyes went wide.
“Oh, no,” His hands slipped on the wheel as he turned. “No, no, no…”
The closer he got, the worse it looked. The lights coming on in neighboring houses, the curtains twitching, dogs barking. The doors left open on the cop car, left open at the house, light streaming onto the porch in blues and reds and eerie whites.
The scream. It happened just as he pulled up; never before or since had he heard such a desperate noise. Footsteps--in front of his terrified eyes, a man in a dressing robe and slippers came charging out of the door, shaking his head, running his hands through his hair.
“No, no, no,” the man was saying, face red, eyes wild. An officer was chasing after him, but he barely noticed. “No, no, it’s not- I don’t- it can’t be her. It can’t.”
“Wait, sir-”
“It can’t!” The words came like a force, and he backed into the street, eyes fixed on the door, the door, the door. Dipper watched his face crumple; his legs wobbled, and he stumbled to his knees, fists pressed into his face. “Ohhh,” and the sound he made was an animal keening. “No, no, no, my little girl, that’s my little girl, that’s my…”
The officer came over and blocked his view--thank god. Tearing his eyes away, Dipper could hear more sirens in the distance, could see another officer come out of the house with his gun drawn. What on earth had happened in there?
As the cop slipped into the back yard, Dipper noticed something in the darkness of their driveway--two stars, only they were much lower than all the other ones, they were… they were eyes.
Animal eyes, staring straight at him. They sent a shiver down Dipper’s spine; he met their gaze, and felt his head beginning to pound again.
eeeeeeeeeee…
eeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-
It felt like a pop in his head; the pain was… still awful, but it was like something had given way; there wasn’t so much pressure.
And that wasn’t the only thing. Opening his eyes, Dipper was suddenly seeing… differently.
Everything was brighter? Things were glowing on the road; they moved, and he realised they were people! What the hell? He looked to the eyes, and he could suddenly make out a tall, shimmering figure with antlers. There was an oilslick iridescence to its light, and the pain started to ramp again, so he looked away.
He looked at the house, and… it was so strange, he was sitting in the car, but he could also see things like he was standing in the doorway, he could see the coatrack on the inside wall. He looked at a door and he was inside a kitchen--or he was looking through the wall? He had to close his eyes and breathe.
What on earth was going on? He looked at his hands, but they didn’t glow like the others; he checked the mirror, and saw his eyes had taken on a strangely golden shine… what had it done to him?
Seeeee…
A voice. All other sounds had faded to mumbles, but something cut through the noise.
Seeeee again…
He didn’t know what that meant… but he saw the shining figure of Gemma’s uncle being helped to his feet. He couldn’t hear him anymore, but looking at him, Dipper felt tears springing to his eyes, felt this deep hole of shock and horror and building anguish twisting within him; he’d seen something awful in there.
Dipper looked to the house, his heart thumping. He looked, and he was in the hallway. A cup of tea was on a side table. Stairs; a blink, and he was on the second floor.
There: a door, kicked open, lying sideways in the frame. And inside…
“Oh, god,” Dipper breathed.
Gemma was on the bed, dressed in flowy blue pyjamas, her hands clasped on her chest like how they laid out bodies for viewing. She looked so peaceful… and so, so, dead.
Two deep wounds gouged her pale neck, yawing wide and showing bone. Her eyes were closed, her hair was neat… but there were bruises. Ugly purple things mottled her cheek, and her forearms were particularly colourful.
No blood, though. Not a drop on her pillow, even though her neck opened just centimeters over the fabric. Not a drop in her body, judging by her ghostly complexion. It was like she’d been… been drained.
Oh, god.
Dipper swallowed, hard. He’d seen bodies before--messy ones, sometimes. But nothing had prepared him for seeing Gemma’s body. She was- she was dead, she was murdered!
(And who drains their victim’s blood?)
No. No, no, it couldn’t be.
(Who was Gemma trying to bring to justice?)
No! No, it couldn’t- there had to be some other explanation, there just had to be! His eyes cast wildly around the room, there were little scuff marks on the floor, was that something? The door had been locked, but there was a window to the backyard. There was an end table, but when he reached for it his hand hit the steering wheel--oh, right.
The ceiling fan, it looked… looked damaged. Not by much, but it looked like it’d been pulled out of the drywall a bit, the fixture was tilted sideways. Did it get hit by the door somehow, or-
A knocking sound; someone was rapping on his car window. Blinking, Dipper saw the bright-glowing figure fade into the face of a policeman.
He rolled down his window. “Uh-” he started, but they cut him off.
“You’ve gotta move your car, sir.” He motioned, and Dipper saw another two cop cars had arrived on scene; they were laying out yellow tape. “We need to secure the perimeter. Are you a resident?”
“I…” He saw Gemma’s uncle crumpled on the curb with his face in his hands. “No, I- what happened?”
“We’re investigating an incident, that’s all you need to know.” He pointed down the street. “Turn around at the cul-de-sac and come straight back out, yeah?”
“Okay,” he managed, and distantly noticed the cop walking away. He started driving, past the house, past the flashing lights, past the neighbors in sleepwear standing on their driveways. It was all noise to him.
All he could see was Gemma. Gemma’s body. Gemma’s body.
It’d been a long time since Lucy Ann had used a loom, and she was learning one thing: she didn’t miss it. She sat in the sunny courtyard, surrounded by bright bundles of hand-spun yarn, struggling to thread the weft with her little arms. She had to crawl halfway into the frame each time; squeezing herself out, she came face-to-face with a dove perched on the loom.
“Oh yeah?” Lucy Ann grumbled at it. “Let’s see you do a better job, drumstick.”
“What was that?” From across the courtyard, Šikkû took an earbud out. “Did you say something?”
“No, no, just… talking to myself.”
“I see.” She nodded to herself, and then started up her arc welder again. The bright light illuminated her bare face. “You should borrow my headphones. I find the work more enjoyable with some music, or a podcast.”
“Hmph. You like podcasts now?”
“Oh, yes! I like this one where they play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons together.” She laughed. “It beats talking to yourself.”
Lucy Ann stared at her pathetic progress on the loom, and then at one of the intricate rugs draped over a clothesline. “Yeahhhh, I don’t know if I’ve got the patience for this.”
“That’s alright; would you like to try something else? I think you’d like glassmaking.”
“Hmmm…” She looked towards the street. “I was thinking of going for a walk.”
“A walk?”
“Yeah!” She watched Šikkû mull it over. “Just down to the river… No worries if you’re busy-”
“Oh, no, no--actually, I think I was meant to drop some papers off at the college.” She stroked her chin. “Perhaps… I’ll finish off this piece, and then we can go on this walk?”
As promising as that sounded, Lucy Ann knew Šikkû only had like a 30% chance of following through. “Sure, I’ll wait for you,” she said, leaving out ‘within reason’. “I’m going inside, you want something to drink?”
Šikkû started welding again. “No, I’ve had… my…”
And then she just trailed off, absorbed into her work. Lucy Ann raised an eyebrow; yeah, make that 20%.
Still, it was refreshing to get out of the sun for a moment. Once she got a drink, she wandered into the living room and flopped down on the couch; two cats immediately jumped onto her lap, and she sank back.
“Ah, yeah,” with a stretch, she put down her glass, and started petting a tabby one. Its purr rumbled through her legs. “You and me both, buddy.”
With drooping eyes, she looked at Šikkû outside. Well… maybe she’d just… take a little nap… first…
…
“Athar’an--Min fadlak, min anta?”
Šikkû’s voice filtered in from outside. Lucy Ann didn’t pay it much mind… until someone replied.
“Uh… ma, fee… uh…” and then they spoke in English: “I’m sorry, I don’t- are you Dr. Hazem?”
Now that was unusual. Lucy Ann opened her eyes, and saw Šikkû had stood up, and was blocking her view of the visitor.
“I am,” Šikkû said, and she could see her gripping the metal pole she’d been welding. “And who are you, child?”
“I need to see Lucy Ann.”
Lucy Ann sat up. No way. No fucking way was this happening.
“I don’t know who that-”
“Yes you do, I know you do!”
“Child-”
“I need to see her right now.” Xiaofan’s face popped out behind Šikkû. “Yeah, she’s sitting in your living room- Lucy Ann! Lucy Ann!”
“No fucking way,” Lucy Ann breathed.
Šikkû moved to block her. “You need to leave, child.”
“I’m not leaving before I talk to her! Lucy Ann!”
“You don’t make that choice.”
“I’m not leaving! Please, she’s the only one I can trust right now!”
And that was another surprise. Only one Xiaofan could trust? What was she talking about?
“Please don’t make me remove you.”
“No, no, come on, my friend is dead! My friend is dead and she’s gonna get away with it all over again! Just let me talk to her! Just let me talk to her!”
Lucy Ann saw Šikkû make a grab for her arm. She hesitated a second more… and then she moved forwards and threw the window open.
“Wait, wait!”
Šikkû turned. Xiaofan immediately surged towards her, but Šikkû held her back. And it really was Xiaofan, dressed in a sweater without so much as a sunhat. “How the hell are you here?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Demon.” Xiaofan said, curtly. The sweat was slick on her face. “The Organ Duck. I summoned it to tesser me to Samawah.”
“Hang on, hang on, you summoned a demon? After all the shit you gave me for-”
“I don’t care about that anymore! Gemma’s dead, Lucy Ann. Someone murdered her!”
“Yeah, and I didn’t do it.” Lucy Ann’s face hardened. “I’ve been here this whole-”
But Xiaofan was nodding. “Time, I know. She’s making you the scapegoat, just like she did to me. I’m not gonna let her get away with it this time.”
Lucy Ann frowned. She glanced at Šikkû, but her face was impassive.
“Okay,” Lucy Ann spoke slowly. “So if you don’t think I did it, then who did? Who’s ‘she’?”
Xiaofan’s reply came without a second of hesitation.
“Mallory Quicksilver,” her face was grim. “Gemma’s best friend. Dipper’s sister. The crematory owner who used to be friends with Harrison Collins. The person who asked for my address the same night I was framed.”
And through all of that, there was one title Xiaofan didn’t mention, one that sent Lucy Ann’s heart plummeting into her stomach.
Mizar, she thought, and one hand fingered the glove on her other.
Holy shit. This was Noie all over again… no. No, that wasn’t fair to Noie.
I am the final dawn, I am the flood
and what was missing from those scriptures will be written in my blood
Dig down into the mud
What good is all this talk of wings when there is nothing left above?
(Have you been waiting long for me?)
alcor & mizar: a playlist for an immortal brother, a hundred thousand reincarnations of his sister, and the crushing weight of eternity
tidal | youtube | spotify
i. even in arcadia – sleep token | ii. me and the devil – soap&skin | iii. emergence – sleep token | iv. darkness at the heart of my love – ghost | v. the worst in me – bad omens | vi. dead butterflies – architects | vii. specter – bad omens | viii. drag path – twenty one pilots | ix. high water – sleep token
Do you have any trivia about your cool OC Mal "Bien" Turbank? No reason just askin don't mind the microphone 🎤
uhhh ummm uhhhhhh let me think
trivia 1: her middle name is definitely not Bien
trivia 2: she wasn't born with the name Malachite but she picked it because she liked it and now it's exclusively what she goes by, she's gotten it legally changed and everything
trivia 3: she's on the tau-verse versions of tumblr and discord. like, chronically, she's one of us, kind of thing
trivia 4: her main hobbies are motorcycles (repairing/upgrading/driving hers) and also old-fashioned photography! which mostly means nonmagical digital cameras in the time when she lives, i expect physical film photography would be next to nonexistent anymore, sadly. but she'd love it if it did exist properly.
trivia 5: she could beat mallory quicksilver in a fistfight in the denny's parking lot at 3am >:)
thanks for the ask! hope this helps! surely you won't do anything evil with the information, right?
not alotau but still tau! tag warnings for transformation, body horror, 2nd person POV, and the creeping realization you're becoming something Other and there's no way to stop it :)
go to the google play store. click on your profile picture in the top right corner. click "manage apps and device" and then at the top of the screen, go to the Manage tab. select the tumblr app, and click the three dots in the top right corner. there will be a check box for "enable auto update" and you want to un-check it.
Mabel isn't an idiot. She knows better than anyone that messing with demon magic can end badly. But all alone in Piedmont, with no one else to watch her brother's back… maybe this is just what she needs.
Mabel didn’t know what happened after they tessered away. Maybe they talked for a bit in their room, maybe they hugged, or maybe they simply collapsed into bed, absolutely exhausted. That’s all Mabel remembered - sleeping.
Sleeping, with the fang clutched close to her side. She dreamt of odd things that night, of angry whispers in the dark, of coils tightening and tightening and choking her, of death, of death… and she awoke, groaning, to the sound of her alarm.
Everything hurt, and she really meant everything. It was an effort to roll over and hit snooze, but to sink back into her bed, to close her eyes once again…
“Mabel?”
“Mph, Dipper…” She waved at him. “Noo…”
“Mabel, sweetie? It’s time to get up.”
Sweetie. That wasn’t Dipper.
“You’ve got to get ready for school.” Her mother gently brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Your father’s making breakfast downstairs - if you get ready fast, you can still have a bit before the bus comes!”
Mabel made a face, and then heaved herself up. She realised she still had something in her hands - the fang. Quickly she stashed it under the covers, and got to her feet.
“Doesn’t that sound, uh, nice?” There was something in Anna’s smile. “You look tired, sweetie. Did you stay out late last night?”
Mabel rubbed her eyes. “No,” she lied, and could almost feel her mother’s smile stretch.
“Well, we didn’t see you come home last night. And, heh, we were waiting until way past your curfew!” She gave a wooden laugh. “So that’s… you know, I wanted to-”
“Fine. We went to a party or whatever. We’re back now, aren’t we… Where’s Dipper?” She looked around, and spotted him in the corner. “Oh, there you are! Morning.”
He gave an awkward wave, and Mabel turned back to her.
“See Mom? We’re both fine, so it’s none of your business.”
“I-”
“I’m gonna get changed now! You know, ‘cause I can’t wait to have breakfast with you two and all. So bye.”
Her mother lingered there for a second, mouth open like she wanted to protest… but after a moment, she sighed and made for the door. Mabel closed the door hard behind her, then grimaced and touched her shoulder.
“Ow. I’m sore in places I didn’t even know I could be.” She chuckled at Dipper. “Some night last night, huh?”
He blinked at her. “Yeah… some night. Are you okay?”
“I’ll be okay, don’t worry about me.”
“Mabel…”
“I’ll be fine.” She sank back into the covers, yawning. “Jus’ tired, I… ow.”
“You okay?”
“There’s something in my bed-” She felt the fang, and immediately snorted. “Welp, I nearly stabbed myself just now.”
“What?”
She drew it out, and watched a strange expression flicker across her brother’s face. He looked sort of tense, sort of angry, and she had to call his name before he’d reply.
“Dipper. Dipper. Bro.” She chuckled when he blinked and looked over at her. “What, you don’t like it?”
“Don’t like it?” Dipper curled his lip. “Mabel, it’s a demon.”
“Ohhh nooo, how terrible.”
“That’s- you know what I mean. It’s not like me. It’s dangerous, and we’re gonna get rid of it.” His eyes met hers, and frowned. “Mabel, we’re gonna get rid of it, aren’t we?”
Mabel clutched the fang a little closer to her chest. She opened her mouth, but there was a knock on their bedroom.
“Sweetie?” Anna’s voice again. “Breakfast is-”
“I know! I said we’re getting changed, mom!”
“Okay, I trust you. Just don’t take too long, we-”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming!” Mabel snapped. She glanced back at Dipper, and rolled her eyes. “I guess we gotta talk about this later,” she said, and stuffed the fang into her backpack. “Okay, we’re coming down in a second! Let me find a sweater…”
She walked past Dipper to her drawers, and felt his eyes on her as she picked something out. They didn’t talk again; a coming argument hung over them like a storm cloud, waiting to break.
Once Mabel got changed, she hefted her bag and sped down the stairs to the kitchen. The smell of bacon made her stomach rumble; the news channel her parents were scrambling to turn off made it twist.
“-details are constantly emerging of the demonic massacre in Piedmont last night. Strangely, the first 911 calls only reported the incident as a shootout, but the terrible truth emerged when-”
“Mabel!” Mark stabbed the remote and shot up with a wide smile. “You ready for breakfast?”
“Not hungry.”
“Wh- Mabel!” Anna watched her walk past them to the door. “Come back! Can we ask-”
“Sorry, gotta catch the bus! School is important or whatever, you know how it is.”
“Mabel-”
Mabel slammed the front door behind her, and rolled her eyes at Dipper. He made a face.
“You saw the-”
“The TV, yeah.” She took a left - not the way to the bus stop. “Whatever, it’s not like they’re not gonna do anything about it. They don’t even have the guts to ask us about it.”
“Yeah…”
“Don’t worry about it, bro.” Mabel gave a smile. “We got the whole day to ourselves. Wanna go to the park? I think we’ve earned a park day.”
Willow knew they didn’t understand why she stayed in the Falls, stayed at home and claimed their bedroom for her own long after they left.
(Even without empathy she could have read the question off them from a mile away: Acacia had never even heard of the word ‘subtle’ and Hank was not as suave and above it all as he liked to pretend he was.)
And she couldn’t lie, there were times it grated on her nerves, being the one who stayed home. It was wild being 28 and still being on a chore chart, or getting a slightly disappointed look from Dad if she hadn’t taken the trash out. Mom would occasionally tell her to call if she was out past midnight though thankfully that was happening less and less as time went on.
But it was nice, to be there for her family as they needed her. The only time Grunkle Ford ever lived with them was when she was an adult, when Hank and Caci had long moved out. He was only with them for three years before he passed, but it felt like… a privilege, to get to see him and Stan finally have the time to talk, to play games together, to be in each others company.
Hell, Stan too. Some of her most treasured moments were sitting with Stan, sifting through photos that his mother had somehow rock skipped from 1960s New Jersey to Oregon in the 2030s. Listening to the stories he told about their family, stories that he hadn’t had really any occasion to tell for decades, about people whom he was the only living relative left to speak of them.
(Mom strangely wasn’t very interested. But then again Mom was very much someone cemented in the here and now, rather than the present or past.)
So yeah, part of it was just the feeling of being able to help her parents age in place but.
What it really came down to was, Gravity Falls was the only place she could relax.
There were obviously still stressors in her life- how the kids were doing in school, for that matter the constant kid acquisition and how she was going to pay for therapy for everyone, how were her and Mom and Uncle Dipper going to talk her Dad into the walk in bathtub conversion….
But in Gravity Falls she was just Willow. Everyone knew her deal and it wasn’t a big deal, just a fact of life, like the hair in the pancakes at Greasy’s or the screams coming from underground in parts of the forest or the demon who spent all his free time in the area.
Outside of the Falls- Willow didn’t know what it was, she wasn’t trying to exude an air of Mystery, honestly.
But though most people don’t have the Sight or the Third Eye or the Sense or whatever they did have an ineffable ability to sense when someone was different. Odd. Weird. Whatever.
At this point Willow just assumed when people saw her the Purer Emotions commercial began playing in their heads, which had them coming to her like a heat seeking missle asking for…. well, everything from the lotto numbers to cheating boyfriends to the future the past and beyond the veil of death.
She had enough on her plate.
Living at home could be stressful. But more often than not, it was watching her kids on the back porch in Stan’s old chair, catching fireflies like her and her siblings used to, while Dad and Uncle Dipper worked on the truck and Mom did some chainsaw carving.
Willow leaned back in her chair, and let the knots between her eyes and at the base of her neck finally melt away.
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