"D-don't know...?" I breathed, shuddering as I could very clearly feel a familiar, yet unnerving sensation rise up from the pit of my stomach, "Don't know what?"
Pines had set a gaze over me that I wasn't sure how to feel about. His stare was blank, dark, wrong. He hadn't opened his mouth yet, but I knew something had changed. I glanced into his eyes, but like a glass mirror, I could only feel the reflection of myself.
And why was he here?
"Dipper..." I pleaded, while my voice was edged with strictness. But he only waddled back a bit, to look me up and down before playing with his fingers. "Please..."
O-or how?
He didn't respond-- or at least, not verbally. I could see him bite his lip, his brows furrowing, as I simply waited in silent agony as he just... stared at me. Then he blinked again, a few more times, before his ears perked as if in sudden realization of something. He bit his lip, before his eyes dodged mine.
"It's not important." He finally burst out, clenching fists against the blanket.
"Yes it is! Why would you even--"
"No, I mean... I can't..." he'd hesitated again, tugging at one of the loose threads in the quilt, "I-I just..."
"Just what?" I hissed impatiently, "You're not hiding things from me, are you, Pines?"
Then there was a tight silence. I felt the breath leave my throat as my mouth was left agape, unsure wheather I was able to end our little conversation at that. I swallowed, awaiting the end of the tunnel of silence, waiting, for some sort of sign that he indeed wasn't lying to me.
"No. No, I'm not." Dipper shook his head briskly, releasing his hands as the tension in both the air and the blanket melted away, "It's complicated, alright? I'm just used to handling things like this on my own,"
"But you're not, I know you, Dipper!" My ears pinned back, "You need my help, whether you like it or not!"
Wait. My face suddenly contorted as a new thought arose.
Did I just--
"Twilight, listen. I'm perfectly fine working on my own. You said so yourself..."
He just made me change the subject? No... he wouldn't--
"W-wait, no! Listen to me!" I shouted, as Danny threw us a side glance whilst he tailed Ivor into the storage room. "This isn't the hot issue right now; right now, I need answers!"
For a split second, the cervitaur's face had expressed some sort of shock, before he lightly shook his head in denial.
"There's just... some things that aren't worth finding the answers to," he cleared his throat as if to signify something that I felt I hadn't been notified of, "Uh, we all have to bare that drive sometimes."
He returned a weak glare, that vanished before my own eyes; his shoulders slumped as he removed his gaze from mine, scuffling timidly back over to the window to rest his head against the hazy glass. I reached out for a second that hadn't lasted long enough, as if to gain his attention. But I faltered, retreating hesitantly back to my far, dark, corner.
I released another shaky breath, before curling up behind a mountain of quilts, and laying my head between my hooves. I allowed sleep to take over yet again, not batting a single eye as I could faintly hear the whispers in the back of my head.
Flip.
Scrriiitch...
My eyes fluttered open.
And instead of a well-earned yawn, the sound that escaped my throat was a sound that... was certainly not a yawn.
"Daniel..?" I stuttered, as I quickly regained my consciousness, noticing the sudden cooler feel of the room than when I'd shut my eyes before. There was a soreness buzzing in my ears as I quickly removed my head from the flattened pile of shirts that had suddenly found its way underneath my sleeping form, and created it's own makeshift pillow.
Daniel; he hadn't really moved a muscle, though. At least not to my response. There was a solemn look on the halfa's face, and well as his hoodie-- One that I didn't exactly recognize-- darkened the room with it's pale cyan coloring.
"Uh...'Rodriguez's Girlfriends'..??" I murmured awkwardly to myself, eyeing the cover and the pastel font title of the book, as if my eyes had a mind of their own, and not too surprisingly, Daniel had noticed me.
"Yeah, but his girlfriends call him Rodney," he flipped to another page.
Flip.
Reading? Daniel? My tired mind tried to tie the two opposing words into the same sentence. The only way I thought hearing those two words so dangerously close was if the word 'NOT' had slipped it's way into the sentence. Something about this had nagged me, as I responded in the most logical way possible.
"Wh-what the heck are you doing... here?" I gritted my teeth, as he failed to remove his nose from the book. That was some sort of... Deja-vu, wasn't it?
"And why on EARTH are you reading?!"
"Ivor." he chewed the inside of his cheek as he flipped the page again, "He's a huuuuge--"
"Egghead, I get it!" I shrieked, entirely out of habit. Daniel huffed, pushing back what I believed was a laugh.
"I was going to say nerd, actually--"
I could feel my face heating up in shame, mixed in a firey batter of other emotions I wasn't too acquainted with.
I might have turned redder than the collection of autumn birch trees scattering the woods.
"N-- Just get the hell off!"
Daniel finally removed his gaze from the text."What?"
He sat up, carelessly flinging the book behind him, pressing his palms dramatically against his chest. "Woah. And I thought I had to watch my language," I fumed at the note of sarcasm.
"I SWARE, Daniel!"
"You're really setting yourself up, there."
I snarled, encasing him in a bright, velvet light, forcefully removing him from the cots, as I smiled in quick satisfaction when I heard him hit the ground.
There hadn't been more than a grunt of light pain, before he gripped the mattress in attempt to get back onto the beds. And in a matter of seconds I was met with a small sound of defeat.
"Alright..." he groaned, pressing his palm against the side of his head, "What did I do to offend your greatness this time, O your Majesty?"
"Say that again and I'll drop you off a cliff instead," I threatened, now conflicted whether I was being serious or not. "Listen, I'm going to request you of something, and I want your FULL attention!"
"Of course your Highness; Shall I fetch the finest Golden Apple from the scary dragon in the woods?"
"I'm serious."
"So am I,"
"LISTEN, Daniel!" I hollered, flaring my wings before retracting them to my side as the sharp pain jabbed my spine for at very least, the thousandth time. I exhaled, standing atop the bed, well above his height from my position, "Listen."
He only returned a glance, and blinked, patently annoyed, but silent. It was certainly a rare occasion, and I knew I had to take shot before the prey scattered, figuratively speaking, of course.
"I need you to--" I nearly winced at my choice of words, "T-to... explain things to me. I want to-- I need to know what happened."
I'd waved him off as he opened his mouth in reply.
"No. Let me finish," He snapped his jaw shut in placement of a response.
I felt jitters climb up my neck as I felt a shadow-like sensation cross over me again. I shook my head briskly, desperate to rid of the possibility that the parasite was suddenly awake. Intrigued. Listening.
Deadly.
Still, and always, deadly.
'No. No, not again. I am in control of my mind-- I-I won't--won't...' I huffed.
"It's... It's going to sound crazy, I know; It's complicated. But you have to swear to me that you will take my every word. Got it?" Daniel had mouthed something short-cut, and I took it as a sign to carry on.
I inhaled audibly, spilling out the doubts puddled in my head, whilst filling my lungs with more oxygen than I had intended. It wasn't going to be an easy task, so I set my mind to make it short, simple, and to the point.
"There's a demon in my head." My voice had wavered just the slightest, possibly only worsening the situation.
Something inside me had sparked as Daniel's eyes had shadowed over, as he sat up from his place on the floor, his hand now digging into the mattress of the cot.
"A what?" he sounded incredulous.
"A- A demon, a parasite, I-I don't know?" I inquired my own statements, now, "It's.... eating at my head, o-or something, I'm not sure..."
I faltered.
Daniel was silent.
It was my turn to have a hand wave off my response to the silence, as Daniel returned a stare.
"I-I just want to make sure you're not...." he briefly glanced at me, before playing with the fabric of his hoodie. "Oh, uh... I-Ivor--"
He seemed to choke on his words, as I studied him anxiously scramble back onto the beds.
Daniel had taken in a quick breath --one I was positive he didn't have to take-- sitting criss-crossed across from me, removing the hoodie from his head, as if it was so crucial to in order to breath properly.
It was that, that had brought me back into the reality that allowed me to really get a look at him.
His face had been lined with faint traces of scars and scrapes, and there were a few brightly colored band-aids decorating his neck. His hair hadn't been the same raven black that he'd always claimed to prefer, but a glowing stark white instead. That color I thought he hated.
Then there was the change.
Because atop his head, in the mess of silver strands, were perked ears of a wolf-- also glistening white, and also, faintly scarred.
And fortunately, that was enough to kick-start my brain back into function.
"Wh-what? I'm listening," My face had brightened at the lightened opportunity, flicking an ear in approval.
Daniel had shaken his own head, blinking a few times before glancing me over, as well. He held his chin in a palm, leaning forwards. "I... Yeah, what was it you were saying...?"
I felt a twinge of guilt, unable to do anything except hold myself accountable; well aware that I had been so much as blunt in revealing my situation-- one that was a tad too much of a sensitive topic for Daniel. Ghosts. Spirits. The Dead.
"I'm just looking for answers, Daniel. Nothing else. You've done a lot in the past. Are you just unwilling to answer a question?"
He remained silent, glancing over my head, at the much quieter trickling of rain down the glass. The little rumbles of thunder felt like a rat under the floor, quivering the house, but weak. I realized, too, that I hadn't been the only one to lose my train of thought as the calming storm disrupted the tension.
I expected his eyes to flicker back to mine, but they remained past me.
"You just want to know what happened?" he questioned, still casting his glance, blank over mine. His lips tightened, as if waiting for the words to come.
Nothing.
A few minutes passed before I took the conversation upon myself.
"Yes... between the time we... we were with Wolf-- when we were.... walking..." I pressed my eyes shut, searching for the memories, my mind like the burnt end of a paper, faded and blackened, impossible to see past the ash.
"W-walking... through the... the forest, uh, just past the ledge by the rivers..." My eyes shot open, "Up until the sun-fall, yesterday,"
"Oh," Daniel had placed a hand at the back of his neck, "Uh, th-that's alot,"
I prepared to shoot a retort, before I had stopped myself, as Daniel continued.
"Right... we arrived at the caverns, after-- the ones that lead a couple miles on-- and...Yeah, that's where we stopped for the night,"
"Then...?" I asked impatiently, biting my cheek.
"Wolf lead us to this 'other' part of the forest, around the time the storm had just... kinda came down on us-- It was when we were confronted with Ivor. I-It's complicated, the whole thing, but we ended up having to save Dipper from drowning in the deeper part of the woods where it was flooding up, like, a lot.
"Wolf eventually left, and Ivor brought us inside for tea, or, whatever that was he gave us. Nothing else really happened the following like, I don't know, three days? Dipper was recovering from pneumonia, and things kind of got weird from there,"
Finally, he had returned my glance.
But it still just wasn't enough for me.
"What are you talking about... how did--I mean, Pi-- Dipper!" I grunted in effort, "Dipper; what happened to him, though? Was it the flood? Which would mean the poison came from the rain-- a-acid rain? Wouldn't that mean this occurred on everyone? The curse rained from the sky?--"
"No, no It wasn't like that at all!" He held his head in frustration, "We're... not sure about Dipper. You were the one who found him, after all. He was just like that,"
"He was just a cervitaur?" I raised a brow. "Fine, explainable; but what happened to you? T-to me?"
"Yeah, about that?" His eyes cast off again, "Uh, you might have tampered with a cursed pond near one of the inworld portals,"
"I-I...WHAT?" My wing had unfurled, the shock of pain far from mind. "No way--- n-not possible, I am NOT going to accept that!"
"This may be why nobody wanted to tell you anything?" Daniel rose his vision towards the ceiling, "You always freak out over stuff like this. Believe me, that is NOT the worst thing that's happened,"
"Okay, okay..." I was able to cease my hyperventilating, forcing the thought that I was getting the answers I yearned for, in my head. "Okay.... then this?"
I pointed towards the pair of glowing, golden horns that curled around my jaws. "W-was this the..."
"Uh, yeah.... the whole 'cursed pond' thing again,"
"And you?" I cocked my head in question, "I'm almost certain you had nothing to do with the pond, either. So..."
"Well.... kinda..." he tilted his head also, and I wasn't sure as to why; whether he was mocking me, or it was just an instinctual behavior-- a side effect, in simpler terms, of this condition in his case.
"Ivor shed some light on the topic a bit, I guess. He said he didn't have the resources to tell us everything, but... it spreads through air bubbles, or something. But according to Ivor, it gets canceled out by precipitation..." he finished, almost in a question, as if he wasn't too sure himself. And I couldn't blame him; I was a bit wary as well.
"So you were tainted by one of those..." I tapped my chin with a hoof thoughtfully, "A globule of oxygenated venom gas... plausible...."
To say the least, I was utterly thrilled at the new unpacking of information. My mind had eventually wandered off as I somewhat unconsciously began theorizing the possibilities, make-ups of these 'air bubbles' that formed from the pond, why precipitation served as a cancelation barrier...
"Uh, hey," A voice announced from the front door, a bit warped by the still falling of rain. Ivor had popped his head inside from out, fingers curled around the doorframe. "I'm going out a bit; you kids stay inside until I get back. These woods aren't the most homely on nights like these,"
His hand fished for a transparent, blue poncho, placed by the door, hung by the hood on a single rack by the farther wall, just above an old toboggan.
Draping it over his shoulders hurriedly, he stuck out his other hand to wave a swift good-bye.
Before he was able to shut the door behind him, I was able to blurt, "Uh, Ivor?
"Th-thanks for everything."
His expression of question had shifted into a warm, light hearted smile in my direction, as he slowly closed the door, fingers dissapearing as I finally heard the click.