"Dipper, I think we took a wrong turn."
"I think we took a lot of wrong turns Mabel."
The twins checked their surroundings. This was definitely not a place they had been to before. Looking out the nearest window, Dipper could see the sun setting. "It looks like we're in the West Wing." He said.
"Really?" said Mabel. They looked down the hall. Unlike the rest of the castle- which was somewhat inviting- this place was foreboding and filthy.
"You know," said Mabel, "If Bluebeards' wife hadn't gone into the forbidden room, he wouldn't have tried to kill her."
"Yeah. But then she would have spent the rest of her life married to a serial killer." Dipper pointed out
"Good point."
So, they walked on, holding hands. The hall looked like it hadn't been touched in decades. There were cobwebs on the ceiling and layers of dust on the ground. All the doors were shut tight and all the furniture had been knocked over or broken.
In the east wing, there were bedrooms, sitting rooms, and even a dusty old ballroom. Wendy once said there was also a library that was being refurbished.
"I had some good times in that place." She had said. "Sneaking out of work and kicking back with a fun book in my hands." Dipper perked up when she said that. "So you did used to be human." He exclaimed, "I was wondering about that."
It had been in searching for the library that they had gotten lost. Although, this was far more intriguing. At one point, they passed by a deer carcass picked clean to the bone. Mabel gagged, Dipper looked away. At another point, they cautiously opened a door to reveal a playroom with a big toy ship. On the wall was a flag with a strange coat of arms.
Finally, at the end of the hallway, there was a master bedroom with the doors busted in. There was no doubt that this was where the Beast slept. If the hall was bad, this was a disaster scene. Smashed mirrors, splintered chairs, and a bed shredded into an unruly nest. Both twins cringed simultaneously.
"And I thought our house was messy." Said Mable.
Due to the rooms' size, they decided to split up and explore different parts of it. At the far end were French windows that opened out onto a balcony. Hanging on the wall near it was a series of lopsided paintings. Dipper examined each one carefully
One of them was a family portrait of four people in costly clothes. Three of the faces had been ripped up, but one, a young man of eighteen, smiled out at him. He wore big glasses and had dark brown hair. His hand was raised as if he were waving. Dipper squinted. There was something off about his fingers...
"Hey Dipper look!" Mabel waved him over to her corner, where she found the only upright piece of furniture in the whole place. A wooden desk with a leather-bound book sitting in a glass case. As he came closer, Dipper could see a gold hand emblazed on the cover that gave a soft glow. For a second, he could almost see a face.
"It's just like the ones at the store." Mabel whispered. Dipper huffed.
"Who've thought the Beast was into writing?"
"Maybe it's a book of spells." She suggested.
"Or a list of victims."
Either way, they lifted up the glass lid for a better look. Before either one could touch it, the book opened on its' own and flipped its' pages to the middle.
"Huh?' Dipper stared at it. "It's blank?"
But even as he said this, letters appeared as if written by an invisible hand; forming in neat cursive script;
Greetings!
Dipper and Mable stared at it, jaws slack, unable to wrap their heads around it. (and unable to hear the quiet foot pads coming towards them) The letters twitched, then more appeared, written somewhat more hesitantly.
Do people still say greetings?
As the kids processed this, a shadow fell over them. A big shadow. They turn to see none other than the Beast standing behind them. He looked furious. With deadly speed he ran around them, they backed away just as he slammed the lid back down on the case.
"Why are you here!?" he demanded.
"We were lost..." Dipper trembled.
"I told you not to come here!!!"
"We're sorry, we~"
"Do You Realize What You Could Have Done!!?" He flung out his paw, nearly knocking them over. "Get Out!" he roared
"Please don't!" screamed Mabel, but he wasn't listening. He just flailed about, smashing already broken objects against the wall and floor.
"GET OOOOOOUUUUUTTTTT!!!!!!!"
Dipper grabbed Mabels' hand and they sped away. Neither looked back. If they had, they would have seen his face fill with remorse. By the time they were out of sight, he was hanging his head in shame.
Down in the front room, Soos was pounding in some fresh nails into the wall.
"Do you think the twins would help us re-hang the old portraits?" He asked Wendy between thuds. "Couldn't hurt to ask." She replied.
Then who should come tearing out of the West Wing than said twins.
"RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN!!!" Dipper urged his sister on as they ran down the stairs, grabbed their cloaks, and headed to the door. The tools followed them with confused panic. "What's up?' asked Tambry, sweeping into the room.
"Deal or no deal, we're NOT staying here anymore!" yelled Mabel without turning around.
"Wait, wait, wait! Come back! Whatever it was, he didn't mean it!" Soos yelled out.
"Guys don't! There are~" They slammed the doors shut before she could say "wolves."
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
They got Gompers from the stable, ignoring the protests of the tools. Waddles tried to run after them, but he fell over in the slush.
They were ten feet out of the gate when they heard the howling. The wolves were still hungry, and here came three wholesome meals. Dipper and Mabel found their path blocked by a grey male who lunged at them.
"AHHH! Evasive maneuvers!" They yelled as they twisted Gompers to a hard left. They didn't know the terrain very well, but Dipper had seen enough of it from the castle to know where to find the cliff.
They dodge a tree branch, heavy with snow. Mabel flicked it with her hand so it would dump its' load onto the wolf. The wolf pursued them in disoriented fury. They led him up higher and higher until they reached a massive mound of snow. As the wolf made a final lunge, they veered right at the last second. And the wolf plowed through the snow and over the edge. The Pines twins took a moment to watch as he landed on a ledge of stone.
"Ha! Yes! High five!" they celebrated their small victory, but then, they heard growling.
More wolves approached them. And they all looked angry.
They urged Gompers to run in another direction. But outwitting one wolf was nothing to outwitting a whole pack. Soon they were surrounded on all sides. Gompers panicked as a wolf snapped at him, and the twins were thrown off. Dipper scrambled to his feet and fumbled for a branch to as a weapon. Mabel held on to the beloved goat and kicked at snapping jaws with her feet. One wolf lunged at her. It latched its' teeth onto her cloak, pulling her to the ground.
"DIPPER!"
"MABEL!"
Dipper tried to come to his sisters' aid, but another wolf sprang at him. It was all he could do to hold it back with the branch. An old black wolf came from the crowd, and leapt at Mabel. She screamed and braced herself. But the wolf never reached her.
A big hairy claw plucked the wolf from the air and held it up. Mabel opened to eyes to see the Beast standing over them, roaring like a lion. He flung the old wolf away and scared off the one biting her cloak. Then he went for the one attacking Dipper.
The pack directed their strength to this new, bigger target. The twins watched in awe as Beast fended off one attacker after another. One female clawed his right arm, leaving a big gash. He responded by flinging her into a tree. The wolf hit it with a hard crunch then limply landed in the snow. The pack, seeing their comrade so effortlessly killed, turned tail and ran. The Beast gave one last roar at the retreating wolves. Then turning to the twins, he gave a weary half-smile, wobbled back and forth, then flopped onto the ground.
Dipper and Mabel ran for the goat, ready to go home and forget all this craziness. Then they looked back at their sudden savoir. Blood covered his right side, His cloak was shredded beyond repair, snow had started falling again, threating to cover him up. He looked just like the injured animals they would sometimes find near the shack.
They looked at him, then at the path, then at each-other. Then a rare moment of synchronized thinking came over them. Scary or not, brutish or not, he went out of his way to save them, and leaving him behind would be wrong.
The Beast slowly came around, trying to get his mind together. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see the boy -Dipper- smiling at him.
"Come on. We'll help you get home."
So, with his good arm leaning on the goat, and the kids supporting his right, the odd little quartet began the long cold journey back to the castle.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
An hour later:
"That hurt!" the Beast roared as Dipper pressed a wet washcloth onto his wound. On the parlor floor, Soos, Wendy, Tambry, and Miss Susan all wisely kept their distance.
"Well, if you'd hold still, it wouldn't hurt so much!" Dipper snapped back. He and Mabel had stripped themselves of their wet clothes, so he wore nothing but his trousers. The Beast continued fuming.
"You know, this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't run away!"
"Well, if you hadn't frightened us, we wouldn't have run away!" said Mabel sitting by the fireplace in her slip. He glared at her.
"... Well, YOU shouldn't have gone into the West Wing!" He finally said.
"Well, YOU need to learn to ease up a little!" said Dipper, "It's not like we were hurting anything."
He paused. That was true. Dipper pressed the washcloth on him again, gentler this time.
"By the way..." he said as the Beast winced, "Thank you, for saving us back there."
"Yeah, we would've been wolf food if it hadn't been for you." Mabel chimed in.
The Beast started at this. It had been a long time since anyone had thanked him for anything. It felt... kind of good.
"... You're welcome." He said in a small voice.
It was quite for a moment. Then Miss Susan chimed in.
"I was telling him the other day how good you were. "Stan" I said~"
"Stan!?" the twins said together, "Your name is Stan??"
"Yeah. So?"
"That's just so... normal sounding. I thought if you had a name it would be something like Moloch, or Abraxas or or... Brutus."
At that, the Beast - Stan - burst out laughing. "Brutus? Really?"
"It's a name."
Stan kept laughing; a rich happy noise that proved to be contagious. Withing seconds, Mabel joined in, so did the tools, and after a minute, so did Dipper.