Deerper Falls

Of Stars and Shadows

The house was rather quiet this morning.

A little too quiet for someone who was used to two lively twelve year olds, sticking Fruit-Loops in their noses, or building a castle out of Stan-cakes. The old man swallowed, the black and bitter taste of his too strong coffee burned down his throat. Not that he could blame them for sleeping so long, he would have stayed in bed longer himself, but Bill's words still echoed in his ears.

Stan Pines gritted his teeth.

Bill truly offered them a way out of Dipper's predicament.

A contract.

A contract that involved every single citizen of Gravity Falls. The terms of the contract were as simple as they were nasty. Everyone need agree to change back to the form bestowed upon them by the cursed river, and Cipher would turn everyone back to the point before Dipper made the Deal with him; the whole town needed to sign that damn paper.

All of them need willfully agree to become monsters again in order to save Dipper.

Stan bit his lips, a grumble bubbled in his throat. Bill's laughter resounded in his ears when the triangle reached eye level with Dipper one last time before he disappeared. His single eye was stretched into a hidden gleeful smile.

"We'll see if your beloved town will return your fawn-vor, Pine Tree. You know why people are so easy to manipulate? They do care a lot about people close to them, but if they have to decide... they'll always chose their own fate before others. But I'm sure you already know about that, right my deer 'puppet'?"

He flushed another gulp of coffee down his throat, while his mirror image looked up to him out of the bottom of the cup, swimming on the dark surface of the bitter liquid.

The Demon was right.

There was no guarantee that they would choose right.

And for sure it would need a lot of persuading to get this damn paper filled and it needed to be filled fast. Grunkle sighed, looking out of the window where the dark branches of the forest were swinging in the light summer breeze.

His eyes darkened as he remembered Dippers temper when Bill let them out of their grip, when the world faded back to normal, for everyone except his nephew.

The wood filled itself back up with colors, Stan's gaze was still fixed on the golden contract laying in the grass below, when two hard stumps bumped him in the back of is a-

"What the-!" But the curse died on his lips as he turned around to meet the angry face of his nephew who had just pumped him with his tiny antlers. The boy's face was red all over, little tears were hidden in the corners of his eyes and a small hint of blood was still visible in the corner of his mouth. But that wasn't what made Stan rigid, it was the look in Dippers eyes that made his heart jump in his throat. The watery, brown eyes of the boy glittered with anger and bewilderment, his voice echoed in the forest behind them.

"WHY! Why the hell would you do something like that? Do you have any idea what Bill could do to you owning your soul?!" But his Grunkle just swallowed and avoided Dipper's gaze to pick up the contract that lay by his feet. His voice was nothing but a raspy whisper.

"I do know about that Dipper, and maybe you're right and it would have been a dumb decision after all. Though I fear making wrong decisions runs in the family... Now calm down kid, he didn't take it anyway, so let's go home before it gets too dark." Dipper bit his lips, he still wanted to know why his Grunkle would do something like that, but Stan's comment about heading home left him with a brand new question.

"How? We are still in the Mindscape, we would just get lost if we started walking around here." But the question just earned him confused glances from his family and friends. Mabel carefully made a step towards him; tilting her head, brown curls wiggled as she questioned.