Gravity Rises (S3)

CW: Part Twenty-One

AN: At 8100 words, this is the longest GR chapter so far. I hope you enjoy.

The next week was a strange mixture of busyness and boredom as everyone waited for the barrier around the forest to go down. The supernatural creatures kept a constant rotation at the barrier, talking to reporters and government officials. Those who could speak English aloud (since telepathy didn't work through the barrier) spent much of their time there: minotaurs like Andrew, hamadryads like June and Ivy, dryads, smoke beings, and so on.

Other creatures made good on Andrew's promise to help humans get to the edge of town for medical care. The townspeople were basically okay, thanks to their survival supplies like generators and food storage. But a few elderly people and young families accepted the creatures' help, and more than one peryton was seen coming to the barrier with little kids on its back.

As for the Symbols, things settled down gradually. Ford and Fidds went back to the Museum and, with Andrew's help, took down the Museum's own barrier spell and gave back the dagger. Waddles went with them, to stay in their care while Dipper stayed at a hotel with his parents. Melody, the Corduroys, and the Valentinos went along to the Museum and spent a day taking all their things back to their own homes.

"Wendy," said Ford at one point, "would you care to explain how you're going to clean your art off the side of my house?"

Wendy glanced at him. "I make the art. Other people clean it up." Her tone, though snarky, was remarkably softer than it would've been with other adults, since she knew the pain Ford was going through — she'd gone through it with her own mother eight years ago.

"I see," Ford said. "Well, as talented as your art is, I do not want a portrait of my brother's killer there for me to see as I come and go. So I hope you can come up with ideas on how to get rid of it."

Wendy flinched just a bit.

Danny overheard the conversation; he didn't mind Ford talking straight with Wendy, and he had an idea. They should get the Gravity Rises news over here to do a segment on the art and interview Wendy. For her part, Wendy was horrified at the idea of an interview, but she did like the idea of her art being on the news. It'd probably end up on the national news, too: The Gravity Rises reporters were the only ones who could get into the town this week, and they were selling their footage to the eager reporters outside the barrier and making good money.

So it was that Shandra Jimenez, local reporter, came to the Museum and did a segment, talking to Ford about the experience of opening his house as a refuge to others, asking various people about Bill and their encounters with him, and taking professional photographs of Wendy's spray paint art of Bill sitting on a throne of human agony.

Once that was over, it was Mabel who had the idea of how to clean it up. "Would brownies have magic to help with that?" she asked, thinking of the illusory brownies she'd seen in the false moon (the moon which, thankfully, had disappeared, and which, thankfully, she'd never have to see again).

Rowan and Marigold, who were still hanging out around the Museum, went to go recruit the brownies. It turned out that the brownies were willing and able to use their magic to purge an image of the multiverse's greatest enemy. When they were done, the log cabin walls looked the same as they had before they'd been touched by any spray paint.

~~~~~

While the older Symbols were dealing with things in town, the younger Symbols were going back and forth between Gravity Rises and the hotels in Baker City that their families were staying in. Ellie and Pacifica were staying in one hotel, and the Pines and the Northwest siblings spent a lot of time together in another. It seemed they must've talked for a whole day straight as Grace and Gideon caught up after six years, and the twins tried to explain to their parents the insane (and insanely dangerous) vacation they'd had. Sam nearly fainted a few times, honestly. Camille just sat there with Sam's hand in her own stony grip and with an intense look on her face. Dipper joked that she was never going to let the twins out of her sight again, and Camille nodded in all seriousness, as if that were very much her plan.