OPEN } what if i'm far from home? oh brother i will hear you call

[krmvgivv]

Who: Dipper and OPEN
Where: His rooms, around the mansion and grounds, the caves
When: 6/8 and the week after
Rating: Probably no more than PG
Summary: Mabel is gone. Dipper, of course, takes the loss totally reasonably and calmly. HAHAHA yeah, no, the opposite.
The Story:

6/8

[When Dipper first wakes up and sees that all of Mabel's stuff is gone, his first thought is that she's playing some kind of weird joke on him. It's a little crueler than he'd expect from her, but really, if your sister can't be cruel to you sometimes, who can be? He rolls his eyes.]

Very funny, Mabel. Come on out. [After all, her playing a mean trick on him is a lot less upsetting than the other possibility. That her stuff is gone because she is. Dipper's read enough that he knows what to look for. Missing stuff. Missing person. Not coming back any time soon.]

Mabel?

[He looks in the closet, under his bed, everywhere. Then he starts getting nervous, but he still doesn't want to admit it. He doesn't want to believe that his sister could be taken from him just like that. He rushes from his room.]

MABEL!

[For the rest of the day he can be found tearing his way through the mansion, searching everywhere. He knows, logically, how all the pieces fit together. He's always been smart. Good at puzzles. And this is an easy one. An easy puzzle that he refuses to accept the solution in front of him. There has to be more to it. She can't just be gone.

Evening finds him on the edge of the forest, a bag full of provisions on his back. There's only one place he hasn't looked. And he's not giving up. No matter what people have told him.]

6/9 - 6/11

[Mabel is gone.

Dipper had to admit it eventually. And thankfully he admitted it before going in the forest. But admitting it isn't the same as accepting it. In the days that follow, Dipper won't be approaching people with his usual cheer. He eats meals with his nose buried in a book, either his Journal or something he's taken from the library, something, anything, that might be useful.

He isn't sleeping much. His half empty room hurts too much. He could change it, make it just his room, but that would feel too much like giving up, and he won't do that.

So instead he spends his nights down in the caves, holding a flashlight and reading. Journal 3 might not have an answer for how to travel between different worlds, but surely somewhere in all the books on Wonderland he can find some answer.

This just can't be it.]

Comments

[krmvgivv]

[Dipper glances down at his hands, smiling a little. She's not wrong about what Mabel would want.]

Yeah... she'd probably be calling me names right now if she were here. Possibly resorting to physical violence too.

[And telling him he should sleep. But that much is still hard when half his room feels so empty.]

[alayne]

My sister Arya is much the same. She would call me names all the times and was a nightmare at dinner times.

[ she rolls her eyes with a little chuckle. ]

we are very different, myself and her she's braver.

[ once she'd use this chance to insult her but that was then, when she was naught but a stupid little girl. now, the way she looks at arya is wholly different. ]

[krmvgivv]

Mabel and me are pretty different too. She's... [How does one even begin to describe Mabel Pines? Dipper tilts his head.] Ridiculous. But not like in a bad way. She just sees the best in everything. And then puts stickers on it.

[alayne]

That is not a common trait of character.

[ especially not where she's from. in westeros, if one isn't clever enough to see the darkness in those they meet, one might lose the game and their heads, too. optimism belongs to small children and in recent times, even they do not have the luxury anymore.

a fortunate girl, she thinks and tries not to envious ]

if that is her way, I am certain she would have you eat another lemon cake.

[krmvgivv]

She probably would. [It's enough to pull a smile out of him, and he does indeed take another lemon cake.]

You know, assuming she didn't just... eat them all before I had a chance. Wish you'd gotten a chance to meet her before she vanished.

[alayne]

Mayhaps she'll come back. My friend Steve, he vanished, we were all heartbroken but he came back and he was safe and sound and just as we remembered.

[ a little smile ]

we can hope.

[krmvgivv]

[Mabel would hope. Dipper would find a way to make sure it happens. But even with all the spells he has in the Journal and all the bits and pieces on Wonderland he's read, he's still got nothing.]

I'm not very good at just sitting and hoping.

[alayne]

Would that you would never have to learn.

[ and would that he would never learn what it means to lose the latter. it is a feeling sansa wishes to install only in those who brought her house to ruin. ]

mayhaps there is something in the library? it is very vast.

[krmvgivv]

That's where I've been looking. [He wraps his arms around his knees, pulling them up in front of him.] So much information and I'm really good at researching and I still can't figure it out.

[If he can't figure it out, what good is he?]

[alayne]

You must not blame yourself. Wonderland lacks sense, it may only wish to make you think you can understand while keeping you in the dark.

[ riddles and riddles and sansa has to wonder how many of them even have answers to begin with. this is a game, another game, play or be played. she cannot allow herself to forget. forgetting would make her a pawn and she is tired of being that. ]

[krmvgivv]

I can't believe that. [Because if there really is no logic, no pattern, if it really is all truly random, then there's nothing he can do. Then he really is helpless. Then Mabel can be taken from him and given back with no rhyme and reason. That he could be taken from her. Then all of this is just... pointless.

He doesn't think he can function if that's truly the case.]

[alayne]

...A wise man once taught a girl that her world was a game. he taught her that she had been played and would she be wiser, she could be a player and she could win.

[ alayne stone's father taught her many lessons but that was the most important of it all. it is but a game, the game of thrones, accept that and strive to win. but dipper had known sansa and not alayne and sansa allows herself to speak of alayne's secrets to him, only for tonight. ]

if there is one who could win against wonderland, I am certain it shall be you.

[krmvgivv]

You really think that?

[Dipper looks up at her, smiling slightly. He isn't sure he believes that. Not when his sister is missing and he doesn't know where to even start to look for her. But Sansa's words help. He wants to think he can win. But it's so hard. The odds seem so stacked against him. How can he win a game with no rules? It's not even that he always follows rules, but he still has to know what they are so he can break them.]

I mean, it's not like anyone else is making much progress.

[alayne]

I do not think any other soul tries as passionately.

[ she shifts her eyes to look around them. c'mon dipper you are reading books in the middle of the night in a cave for the love of. ]

I've never met anyone here more keen on uncovering wonderland's secrets.

[ certainly, interest in them comes and goes but on the whole, sansa knows most people simply came to accept that logic is a foreign concept in these parts. dipper seems to be only of the only people to try and discover a pattern despite it all. perhaps he will be proved right, perhaps he could still save them all.

( she doesn't dare to imagine what would happen on the day she would have to choose between wonderland and westeros. ]

[krmvgivv]

[He just assumed that people saw that as weird, not passionate. That's the sort of comment he usually gets. Her words get him to look up, to smile, even, though it's a small one. It's still just about the only one he's managed since Mabel left. Maybe even since before that. Happiness has seemed an all too distant goal really even since Bill showed up.]

Solving mysteries is kind of my thing. Mabel too. We're the Mystery Twins.

[His expression falls a little.]

I guess... I've got more motivation than usual to puzzle out this one. [And half the set of brains.]

[alayne]

The mystery Twins? what a title.

[ almost frightening unless one knew that they are a boy and a girl with a sense of adventure. it's a great kindness, that their world had allowed them to be children, sansa dares hope that if dipper's sister shall find her way here, that wonderland shall allow them the same.

she nods a little. ]

More reason, more chances, I should hope.

[krmvgivv]

You get used to it. [Dipper thought it was a dumb title at first, but he came to accept it. And it is what he and Mabel do. It works for them.]

Well, if I unlock all the secrets of this place, you'll be the first one I tell.