Gravity Rises (S3)

CW: Part Seven

The gathering outside the Museum was complete. Mabel had never seen so many magical species in one place. It was overwhelming, but also amazing.

She stood inside the magical barrier, watching the myriad of people on the other side. (Glowfly lanterns, magical glowing spheres, and the light of the white "moon" in the sky left everything fairly well lit, though dim.) Other Symbols had left the barrier — Ford was consulting with nymphs and fairies, and Dipper was happily talking to the minotaurs — but Mabel was too nervous to go out in such a big crowd. Ivy had assured her earlier that all the species were calm and respectful, if not friendly. Still, Mabel felt safe behind the barrier, where no one would jostle or step on her.

And there were species that could easily step on her. Perytons, hippogriffs, wolves as big as elephants. . . even sheep-like creatures with thick wool coats and a single glowing horn on their heads. "Unicorn sheep," Dipper had said in delight when he'd first seen them.

Those were only some of the creatures that had gathered. There were humanoids, nonhumanoids, even color-changing smoke beings that sometimes formed faces as they talked. Mabel wanted to go out and talk to them, or feel the hippogriffs' soft feathers, or look more closely at the unicorn sheep. And maybe she would, in a minute. Right now, she was just gathering her courage.

"It's right here, see the sign? And Mabel is here, too. Hi, Mabel!"

Dipper came up to the barrier with a minotaur behind him. To Mabel's surprise, the two grabbed hands and crossed through the barrier together.

"Dipper, what are you doing?" Mabel asked. The minotaur wouldn't have been able to get through without holding onto Dipper, but why did Dipper bring him through?

"Andrew told me to let him in," Dipper said. "Mabel, this is Andrew's oldest son, Enoch. Enoch, this is my sister, Mabel."

"Hello," the minotaur said shyly. His voice sounded young, and he was relatively small compared to the adult minotaurs. He still had a solid build, though, and he looked almost as tall as Gideon and Ford. He wore a grey tunic that stopped above his knees, and the light brown hair on his bovine head was short and looked soft.

"Hi," Mabel said, giving a small smile.

"Enoch is about our age. Well, sort of. I forget how it works." Dipper looked to Enoch for an explanation.

Enoch shrugged. "I'm eight years old. That means I'm about twelve years old from a human perspective. Because you age slower." His voice was careful, like he wasn't very confident about what he was saying.

"He says he's still learning English," Dipper said, "though I think he speaks it just fine. Anyway, weird about the ages, huh? But also cool."

"Yeah," Mabel said. She knew the minotaurs had their own language, but until now she had only met Andrew, who spoke English really well. She hadn't thought about the fact that other minotaurs would still be learning, but it made sense. She widened her smile at Enoch, trying to make him feel more comfortable.

It seemed to have the opposite effect. "I'm sorry," Enoch said hesitantly. "What is the emotion on your face? I don't. . . talk to many humans."

Mabel blinked. Oh, right. Different facial anatomies. From the little Mabel had seen, minotaurs didn't seem to use their faces much to show emotion. She dropped her smile, trying to make her expression neutral. "Sorry. It was supposed to be friendly."

"That is all right," Enoch said. His accent was low, with unfamiliar pronunciation, like saying dut instead of that.

"Why do you learn English?" Mabel asked. "If you don't talk to humans often, I mean."