#Buried Deep In A Bottomless Grave

[oopsl]

Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave by Witch Vomit, 2019

[onlyhurtforaminute]

WITCH VOMIT-FROM ROTTEN GUTS

[blastbeatdbeat]

Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave

[restinfesteringslime]

Despoilment Witch Vomit Buried Deep In A Bottomless Grave

[depravednotdeprived]

A selection of album art made by Matt Stikker

Top Row: Infinite Psychic Depths and Realms of Eternal Decay, both by Outer Heaven, a death metal band with elements of hardcore punk.

Middle Row: Anthropogic Ruin by death metal band Bacterial Husk, and Reclamation EP by black metal band Thirsting Altar.

Bottom Row: Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave and Abhorrent Rapture, both by death metal Witch Vomit.

[idiotcoward]

Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave

In my constant search for good Death Metal I listen to a LOT of death metal, so when I say that this album doesn't stand out much, that isn't to say that it's bad. There is genuine skill on display in the construction of these riffs (personally really love Squirming in Misery). The vocal performances have gravity and power. The drum playing is perfectly in time and dynamic, switching it up constantly throughout the song to keep you on your toes. The overall aesthetic has that nasty dripping feel you love with good death metal. But at the same time, I sort of feel like I've listened to this record before when I haven't. I know it's not reasonable to expect every band to have their totally own sound or to fully change the genre, especially one that requires as much technical skill as death metal does, but at the same time, I dunno, nothing that blew me away.

[freaks-and-facades-ravenloft]

Freaks & Facades: Session One - Vignettes Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of the Session One Vignettes for Freaks & Facades!  If you haven’t read Part One, we recommend you do so you get the full cast!

Our cast of player characters have begun to be drawn into the Mists of Ravenloft, but there’s still two remaining: Channa and Solange!  And where do each of our friendly freaks find themselves at the end of their vignette?  Read on to find out more!

Warning: this is a horror campaign setting, so bear that in mind before reading.  Possible triggers for these vignettes: animal death, fire, blood, buried alive, claustrophobia, falling...

Enjoy at your own peril!  Bwahaha!  And thank you for reading! *starts projector* - Aboleth Eye

Channa Devir

The grounds of the University of Wynarm-Arcanix are Misty and dark.  In the abandoned laboratory of a missing professor, Channa Devir is doing something profane.  Her familiar of elemental earth Igneous brings her the forbidden tome she needs.  Stolen from the hands of the ongoing inquiry.  With this dark knowledge she begins to assemble the Perversions of the Four Elements.

Channa hasn’t slept, her mind racing.  A boon to one ignoring everything their own conscience.  She must discover what happened to those who partook of the ritual.  First her only friend a year ago, and then her mentor just a month ago!  This ritual was her friend’s design...  What had he done in this perversion of the elements?  

She gathers what elements she can.  Grave from her master’s stores.  Blood from her own veins.  Mist flowing down the bricks to carpet the laboratory.  Power is gathering.  And so are the sounds in the square.  

A pounding at the door.  Her teachers.  Her colleagues.  Her protectors.  The pounding at the door grows greater and greater as Channa descends deeper into her pursuit of the profane elements.  

All she need do now is create the Pyre.  A small cage, doused in oil.  An innocent rat squeaking piteously inside...  Can she damn this creature to torment for her dark purpose?

The room thrums with energy, making her dizzy.  Channa stares at the match in her wounded hand, doubt pounding at her mind like the pounding at the laboratory door.  But it only takes a single flick of the wrist, the decision made...  The rat is consumed in barely a second.  The Pyre roars with the scream of the tiny helpless animal...  The Pyre’s crackling delight in the scream echoes, joining the pounding at the door...  Joining the viscous bubbling of her Blood...  The eerie stillness of the Grave...  The surreptitious murmurings of the Mist...  

The room is nothing but a terrible pulse--the walls shake, Channa’s body vibrates at a frequency foreign to this world...  A crack in the air appears above the profane circle.  A tear in the fabric of existence, the elements of Channa’s reality negated by her Elemental Perversion.  The slip opens like a smile, revealing a bottomless maw of spiraling darkness and rows upon rows of reality-tearing teeth...  

This maw of the Elemental Dark inhales Channa’s body atom by atom, rendering her into the four profane elements...  Until only the concept of Channa Devir herself stands before the Maw, and then is pulled through...

The world vanishes in an instant.  Before a new reality finds a place for Channa.  The exhausted, terrified mage is suddenly immersed in heavy darkness on all sides.  Loamy earth and detritus fills her mouth, stuffs her nostrils, presses against her eyes...  She hears nothing, sees nothing...  She is buried in darkness.  Her body unmade and then displaced somewhere deep beneath graven earth... 

Is this her punishment?  Did something go wrong in the ritual?  Is this what her mentor and best friend both suffered for their hubris?  Is she suspended in graven earth alongside them? 

Channa feels a tug in the earthen hell, the familiar hand of her earth elemental perhaps?  Channa, choking on earth and soil, pushes forward through the endless earth to follow this tugging.  She has to Know!

A solid object, unseen, impedes her path.  The unseen stony limb vanishes, abandons her at this obstacle...   Does freedom lie beyond it, or merely the deepest bedrock?  

Channa gathers all her strength, all her fear, all her undying need to Know!  She punches through the obstacle, light and air blind her senses!  She pulls herself up, gasping and choking!  Her ears are stuffed with earth, there’s a murmuring voice...

Solange Therese Charron

The night is dark and Misty, the moon is shrouded.  A lone member of St. Leonburg’s Order of the Moonlight Vigil patrols the graves, lantern swinging and veils swishing in the night breeze...  Solange murmurs to herself.  To something unseen, something close to her heart, or merely attached to it...  Solange is on patrol tonight, to preserve the serenity of those buried here.  It’s what the odious nobles of Port-a-Lucine demand.

The clouds shift, and Solange feels a tug upon her golden eyes.  A mausoleum is open...  The stone doors pushed outwards, from within.  Fresh blood upon the ground.  Something once alive was dragged into this lonely crypt.  No name upon the ancient stonework...

Solange knows she should not investigate alone.  But she is compelled to preserve life, to save those stolen by the grave.  She ignores the pull of Maman and peers into the crypt.

A statue of Ezra, Guardian of the Mists, sits within the mausoleum.  A comforting figure to many, but so out of fashion these days.  Beneath the statue lies stone steps.  Into the Catacombs of St. Leonburg’s.  Where only the Deep Watchmen may tread.  

The bloody trail, handprints of desperation upon the bone-inlaid walls, leads down into the depths...  Despite knowing the risks, Solange descends, against the Moonlit Vigil’s tenets and her own sense.  The lantern light casts dark shadows from every femur and skull inlaid into the ancient labyrinth. 

Suddenly, Solange hears the sounds of running.  From the ceiling, a voice echoes in her mind, she’s running out of time...  Solange follows the unseen spectre.  She follows the bloody mess further into the Catacombs, she attempts to leap across a chasm in a descending staircase...  She makes it across.

But the stones crumble beneath her feet...  She falls into the depths, true darkness.  She lands on a dune of bone fragments and dust...  In a subterranean desert of the crumbled dead.  White centipedes skitter from her light.  The dark is endless beyond the closest dunes.  Solange cannot see the hole she fell through...  She must get out of here!

Solange marches through the dunes.  Maman points something out to her after a time.  The dunes behind her are shifting position...  And great tidal wave of bone dust is rising.  A tsunami of choking remnants, headings towards the tiny gravekeeper... She runs!  

The desert of bone slows her down, barely pushing through as the dust rises to her waist.  Enormous hands of bone (too many bones) rise up to grasp at her!  Eventually, inevitably Solange is caught by the wave!  She is soon submerged in the shifting grains of bone,  Answers to her past, to her connection with the dead; all will be forgotten.  Solange will never be found.  Did she ever exist?

Suddenly Solange is falling into bright light, landing hard on something solid and rolling off to the floor.  She is covered in bone dust, choking on it in her lungs and nose.  She hears a voice and opens her golden eyes...

The Innkeepers

The fire filled the tavern hall, crackling and casting amber shadows.  Garlands of dried herbs hung like curtains between the tavern beams and pillars.  Each and every table was groaning under the weight of entire feats, steaming sumptuous dishes from many different realms.  The Matron expertly swept the floor.  It had been a long time since they had had patrons of the Inn and she was looking forward to it.  The Raven flew from the upper stairwell, failing to swipe at the Matron’s hair.  

The large bird landed on the bar, where the Maiden in her indigo headscarf was polishing glasses.  She had been doing them in a cheerful daydream until the bird croaked at her and tipped over a glass.  She shooed the bird away, and it flapped away.  The Maiden rolled her eyes petulantly and began to tidy.

The Raven, the geometric sunburst pendant swinging around its neck, landed on its mantlepiece perch.  The Raven dipped its face in the silver cup close by, nibbling something and came out with a bloody beak.  It looked down at the creature who sat before the fireplace in a tall gray chair.  The Madame...

Legs smothered by quilts and blankets, too weak to even shed a single layer; the Madame’s gray eyes stared at nothing.  Her skin was draped on her skeleton like velvet that once fit.  Her gnarled, yellow-nailed hands shook like leaves in a gale.  An unconscious thrum of gathering energy was the only thing giving the wispy-haired crone any animation of her digits.

On a small table before the Madame’s seat, a black enamel box sat.  Suddenly, all those of the Inn suddenly heard the painted cards within shiver and rattle.  Their heads snapped to attention, looking at one another.  Save for the Madame, the pitiful wretch.  She had no strength to even turn her head or shift her eyes...

Suddenly! the front door burst open by a great Misty wind.  A cloaked figure was thrust in by the terrible gale!  All of the inn watched the panting figure, the silver dagger in her hands glistening.  The Matron welcomed their first guest of the night, commenting on the blustery night.

Pryrrish Norfaer looked up, shocked by the scene she had stumbled into.  The Raven stared down the newcomer and croaked out, “Pick a card!  Awk!!”

Before Pryrrish could respond, a great tumbling noise came from the upstairs.  Down the stairwell, a man fell head over heels again and again, red hair wild as he tumbled.  He continued rolling until colliding with a table, shifting the Lamordian spread on it slightly.  A hastily packed valise tumbled down afterwards.  

Ludwig Hössler Schrödinger quickly righted himself and apologized for his unorthodox entrance, speaking in Lamordian.  No one responded.  The Matron asked, in Mordentish, if he was alright.  He changed languages, trying not to give in to his confusion.   Just as the young lordling spotted the other outsider--an elf of all things!--the Raven croaked out, “Don’t dillydally, boy, and pick a card!  Awk.”

As the Raven spat out the words, a great noise came from the chimney.  Something small and golden tumbled down from the fireplace, sending a cloud of ashes and dying embers as it collided softly with the Madame’s pile of blankets.  A golden haired halfling uncurled herself and shook off the embers, confused.

Fenri Sunwillow spotted the old woman she’d collided with and immediately began to fret and bombard everyone with apologies  The Matron soothed her worries, for Madame Xenia had plenty of padding to protect her.  The halfling still fretted, and struggled to fathom what had occurred to her.  Startling her from above, the Raven flapped and shouted, “Pick a card, awk awk awk!!!”

A great sound of splintering wood came from beside the Maiden at her bar.  A dirty, bandaged hand had burst through the floorboards!  Pushing herself through the wood and dirt, a disheveled and exhausted woman pulled herself through the earth.   A creature of elemental earth helped pull her out completely.

Channa Devir was half-blinded by dirt, barely breathing the open air.  Igneous was beside her, she could tell.  The Maiden offered her a glass of water, unperturbed by her entrance, and Channa graciously took it.  As she slowly sipped and spat out dirt, the Raven hopped up and down on its perch.  It shouted out to the half-deafened mage, “Pick a card, awk awk awk!!!”

Just as the mage began to breathe more easily, something burst through the ceiling above the tavern!  A cascade of white dust and a figure in mourning veils created a massive hole!  The figure slammed into a table and rolled off!  The Matron ran over... To sweep up and give the veiled person a handkerchief.  The veils shimmered, the disguise shimmered, revealing the figure’s strange golden eyes.

Solange Therese Charron was stunned by her ordeal, but she spoke in accented Mordentish an apology.  As she wiped off the dust of the catacomb desert of bone, she looked around confused.  An elf!  A man in ugly/unfashionable Lamordian attire!  A halfling in shining armor!  A woman choking down water, covered in dirt!  

The Raven had had enough!  It shouted out to all the visitors, shaking the beams of the inn with its hoarse voice: “Pick a card!  Awk!  Pick now!  Pick now!”  It wanted this to be over and done with!

Six strangers, each a victim of some unnatural circumstances, looked to one another.  The Matron swept up as if this was completely normal.  The Maiden leaned over the bar and gave a flirty wink.  The Raven, exhausted by its outburst, went back to eating the cupful of entrails.  

The Madame was silent.  Her eyes never left the fireplace, the waving flames dancing in her vacant expression.

On the table before the crone, the box of her cards shifted and squirmed unseen.  They were eager to be used this ominous night at the Ravens Loft Inn!

Freaks & Facades will continue in Session Two - The Ravens Loft Inn!  Click here to read on! 

Thanks for reading!  We hope you love our friendly freaks as much as we do!

Parts: Zero/Cast, One P1, One P2, Two, Three, Four [tbd]

- Aboleth Eye, 05/20/2023!

[yhwhrulz]

Days of Heaven on Earth Devotional: May 8th

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die” (John 12:24)

Death and resurrection are the central ideas of nature and Christianity. We see them in the transformation of the chrysalis, in the buried seed bursting into the bud and blossom of the spring, in the transformation of the winding sheet of winter to the many tinted robes of spring. We see it all through the Bible in the symbol of circumcision, with its significance of death and life, in the passage of the Red Sea and the Jordan leading out and leading in, and in the Cross of Calvary and the open grave of the Easter morning. We see it in every deep spiritual life. Every true life is death-born, and the deeper the dying the truer the living. We doubt not the months that have been passing have shown us all many a place where there ought to be a grave, and many a lingering shred of the natural and sinful which we would gladly lay down in a bottomless grave. God help us to pass the irrevocable sentence of death and to let the Holy Ghost, the great undertaker, make the interment eternal. Then our life shall be ever budding and blossoming and shedding fragrance over all.

Copyright Statement This material is considered in the public domain.

[maquina-semiotica]

Witch Vomit, "Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave"

[cremationisirreversible]

𝖂𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍 𝖁𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖙 – 𝔉𝔲𝔪𝔢𝔰 𝔒𝔣 𝔇𝔶𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔅𝔬𝔡𝔦𝔢𝔰

Buried Deep In A Bottomless Grave / 20 Buck Spin / 2019

[bizarrobrain]

"Dripping Tombs" by Witch Vomit - From "Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave" (2019)

[yingren]

certainty is a luxury few can afford, and ren has rarely been among them. he constantly teeters on the edge of his own madness, a dark, all-consuming void eager to devour whatever remains of him. every part of his being has been dissected by his own mind, and it's not always the mara pulling the strings. while it enjoys playing puppeteer with him, the universe serving as the stage for this macabre performance, ren knows he can’t place all the blame there. yet something about dan heng's admission strikes him as odd, cracking open the possibility of a conversation ren has been pushing for—one the vidyadhara has always seemed reluctant to indulge. for once, it almost feels like ren is caught off guard, a feeling he despises, made evident by the deep furrow now etched into his forehead.

where friendship once felt like drifting through clear blue waters and basking in the warmth of a boundless azure sky, now only a bleak, gray horizon stretches before him—obscuring the depths of dan heng’s eyes, which ren can no longer read. hidden, veiled, and sealed away like a reminder of the indelible distance between them, the chasm only widens. there's something cruel about the entire ordeal, a bitter irony that stings deeply. the deliberate way dan heng has buried every trace of his former self strikes ren like an offense, a quiet yet piercing insult. the anger it stirs in him is difficult to articulate, simmering beneath the surface, growing with each helpless encounter. every moment feels like falling into a bottomless, monochrome grave, surrounded by oppressive walls, with nothing but those gray, sickly clouds to greet him—clouds that, as much as he despises them, seem to mirror what he now sees in dan heng’s eyes. 

they are worlds apart, undeniably and irrevocably. a faint shadow of their old companionship lingers, like the quiet whisper in a wind that has long since died, but that’s all there is. dan heng has not just distanced himself but claims to be someone entirely new, swearing off any ties to his past life, any resemblance to the person ren once knew. yet, beneath the hate he displays lies a painful hypocrisy, one ren can feel, like a layer of fine dust coating his skin that he cannot shake off. for ren has done the same—renounced his old self, cast aside the man he used to be. and so, he stands there, bitterly aware that while they are divided by two different worlds, they are bound by the same struggle to escape who they once were.

“ would not be the first time that you are wrong. ” there’s no malice in his voice, the words slipping out almost automatically, spoken with a candidness that emerges from the shadows clouding his expression. the thick tension between them feeds the fog that hangs heavily in the air, and ren tries again, this time letting out a small sigh before he speaks. each syllable feels like it lands with the weight of an insult, though that’s far from his intent. still, his words carry more hostility than necessary, unavoidably tainted by the strained state of their relationship. for too long, they've been locked in this tired dance of back-and-forth exchanges, and by now, it’s the only rhythm ren knows how to follow. “ if you once were so certain, what changed ? ”

@malumae continued.

He exists as a dichotomy between past and present, the culmination of his previous life manifested in imprisonment, adamantine shackles bereft him of his freedom, his world extending only as far as the darkness; those dreams and memories inextricably woven. Dan Heng’s banishment was extricating, to witness the vast cosmos both as infinite possibilities and a constricting, liminal space. The time between their paths crossing is unpredictable but he cannot forget the tactile memory of cloudpiercer’s shaft pressing firmly into his hand and the fetid scent of death searing at his senses. Whether transient or harrowingly drawn out they were invariably steeped in a macabre red. Alike the cascading stream of his past incarnation’s memories, those of ren begin nebulous and with each laboured breath they take on a terrible clarity. He cannot forget, even as he brandishes denial and calls it his truth, his mind is not a place he can escape from. ❝—  there is nothing for us to talk about.❞ those terse words are something Dan Heng had recited before. Once, his belief in them had been unfaltering, all that was left for them was the collision, the haunting last breath before ren’s life ended. Now, there was a part of him that was ambivalent, that could no longer rely on that sequence to remain unchanged. It is with that hesitation that he becomes transparent, the limpid waters of his gaze tempestuous. Dan Heng observes him attentively, an ingrained response to his guttural voice; as quarry might it’s inescapable predator. His features might be compelled to remain reticent but the blanched skin drawn taut over his knuckles and his bated breath are traitorous things. There is so much to talk about, a life-times worth, yet he remains dithering at the cross-road between uncharted territory and the visceral flood of relief at eluding him. When did that feeling become so unfamiliar?  Then you’re clearly still running. His body no longer keens beneath the impact of ren's blows, his ire relentless but consistent — a variable he could predict. As the other turns on him, through the dark undulation of his hair Dan Heng is transfixed by his gaze, his pliant skin invites it to bury its rancour beside his fluttering heart-beat. He had devoted himself to emphatically separating himself from that past, to cast even a cursory glance back was to tempt the dragon’s jaws to close around him. Was there ever going to be a time where the ground beneath him felt solid enough for his stubbornly moored feet to turn back without the encroaching shadow of trepidation submerging him. He meets ren’s gaze, anchors himself in the intensity of that hue, in the lethal edge of his pupils. As his breath is expelled, soft, like the golden light dispersing between narrow branches and the visages of friends the past still harboured with such a painful fondness, he could almost envision it. The high elder and the craftsman, two who shared such a profound bond, the vestiges of which still lingered in the echoes of their present. His expression is complicated, as if that distant memory unfolded before his very eyes and he was but a bystander to his previous incarnation’s candour.  ❝ It could also be that I’m wrong. ❞ he reciprocates the sincerity within Dan Feng’s memory with a precarious brush with his own subsiding reluctance. He witnessed himself immured in ren’s eyes, a countenance both wholly familiar and an anomaly where he could have sworn the ethereal features of the vidyadhara’s high elder stared back at him. ❝ I used to be certain.❞ Dan Heng’s disquiet is patent, unable to find his answer wading through the shallow waters of his own heart nor in the other’s gaze. ❝ … that has changed.❞ 

[deadzombiebrains]

[happymetalgirl]

Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave

In case in wasn't obvious, hi, I took a break for a few weeks because I got very busy with other stuff, and now its time to get back into catching up on all the metal I missed, starting with this wonderfully brief sophomore effort from Portlandia's own Witch Vomit. Not even cracking the thirty-minute mark, the quartet's seven-track exposition is quite appropriately trimmed for the straightforward, old-school, brutal death metal they have to offer us this year.

Stylistically Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave is hardly bringing anything original to the table, but its savoriness comes from its brilliant channeling of the matured fierceness of the old guard through modern production and monstrous deep growls. The guitars are thick and meaty and absolutely satisfying to hear even when they take a break from the riffs.

The merciless low-end remolo-picking of "From Rotten Guts" kicks the album off in deliciously muscular fashion and the subsequent "Despoilment" keeps the momentum going and even ramps things up with wilder riffage and some dynamic thrash elements to give the be st straightforward album at least some sense of layeredness.

The tremolo-riff-laden, mostly-instrumenal title track serves as a fine segue into the wonderfully varied riffage of "Dead Veins".

"Dripping Tombs" keeps the percussive pace and the wild riffage up, while the fully-instrumental "Squirming in Misery" showcases the band's black metal influence at the instrumental level through the swaying tremolo picking and fast, ride-accented drum fills.

"Fumes of Dying Bodies" closes the album in a storm of blast beats and low-end tremolo chugging as tumultuous as that which began it.

While there's not a lot in the way of freshness or stylistic ambition, Witch Vomit's proficiency with the genre they're choosing to take on and create within is on full display here, and it's the power of that display that justifies their more primal death metal approach.

Puppies sure are cute aren't they/10

[billnoncipher]

Losing Time

This story is not in my usual continuity, but was written for Wendip Week 2021, topic "Time Travel."

for Wendip Week 2021

---

Mabel faced a hard decision when she called in that favor.

She was nearly thirty, she was a successful clothing designer, she had a steady romantic partner, life was good. But then on a visit to Gravity Falls, she visited the grave of good old Waddles, whose heart had given out the previous winter, while she was off in New York.

And she hadn't been able to say goodbye.

And despite the fact that she was all grown up and everything, it ripped at her heart—that she hadn't said farewell to her most favorite pet of all time. It wasn't that he hadn't been well cared for—Soos saw to that, giving the pig all the comforts and plenty of food. It wasn't that he was cut off in his youth—seventeen is a good long life for a pig. It's just that—

Well, now she knew how Dipper felt.

Speaking of whom.

Dipper and Wendy were coming up on their tenth wedding anniversary, they had adorable twins, age six, names Alexander and Amanda, and they lived in the Mystery Shack. Grunkles Stan and Ford still technically owned the place, and Soos ran it, but over the years he and Melody had expanded it until their own growing family caused Soos to have a separate house built just across the road, and he and his family of six—he, Melody, Benny, Betty, Alma, and little Stanley—had made the short move. Dipper had inherited Grunkle Ford's role as investigator of the weird, Wendy was a nationally-known consultant on forestry issues, and they took over the living space that Soos had left vacant.

Ford, now semi-retired, still came over to work with Dipper down in the secret labs when some project was afoot. Grunkle Stan came over to help when the Shack was swamped with tourists in vacation season, but he spent a lot of his time visiting casinos all over the world, where his odd luck always brought him a steady income.

The attic bedroom had become disused.

"Can I stay?" Mabel asked in a small voice just at sunup that day. "Just for a couple weeks?"

"Sure, Mabes!" Wendy said. "Any time, you know that."

Dipper, now sporting a goatee and wearing glasses to correct mild myopia, said, "Sis, what's wrong?"

With a sad smile, Mabel said, "You can tell, huh? Just getting all sentimental. Missing Waddles."

"Oh," Dipper said. "That. We're sorry you couldn't make it back in January."

"It was so unexpected," Wendy said. "He was OK, you know, kinda slow and sleepy all the time, and then one morning we found him in his stall. He'd passed in his sleep."

"He was comfortable to the end," Dipper said. "The heat was on. He didn't freeze or anything. He looked peaceful."

"We buried him down the hill," Wendy told her. "Come on, we'll walk you down."

The place was pretty, a small clearing off to the right of the Mystery Trail. Grass had greened the mound, dewy now with the dawn, and—Mabel couldn't help sobbing—Dipper and Wendy had put up a marker, one of those you could buy for a cherished dog or cat. It read,

---

WADDLES

2012-2029

Always Loved

---

"Could you just leave me here for a few minutes?" asked Mabel.

Dipper hugged her. "Sure, Sis," he said. "Take y our time."

Wendy hugged her, too. "You gave him a good life," she said.

When the two had left, Mabel took a deep breath and took something that looked like a thick button from her jeans pocket. She held it between finger and thumb, close to her lips, and said, "OK, Blendin Blandin, you owe me one."

And without fuss, explosions, or special-effects noise, he was there, beside her, in his old uniform. "M-Ma-Mabel," he said, smiling. "Hi. It's be-been a wh-while."

"Yeah," she said. "You're looking—exactly the same. How's Time Baby?"

"Te-te-teething," Blendin said with a grimace. "The ne-next thou-thousand years are go-gonna be hard. I gu-guess you want your fa-favor now?"

"I do," she said. "Waddles passed away last January. I don't want to bring him back to life or anything. I've learned better than that. But I didn't get to see him before he went, and I really want to visit him one last time. So—could I borrow a time tape?"

"I pro-promised," he said. "I always carry a sp-spare these da-days. Here."

"And I also need your advice," Mabel said, accepting the heavy time-travel device. "I want to visit Waddles on the happiest day of his whole life."

"You-you'll have to a-avoid meeting yourself," Blendin warned. "That would be cat-cata-catas—bad."

"Agreed," she said.

"Let me find out how to se-set the co-coordinates, then," he said. "Just a se-second."

He blinked out of existence for just three seconds, then reappeared, slapping at his hair, which was smoldering. "Th-that was two we-weeks of hard wo-work!" he said. "Lucky this-this is m-my va-vacation month. OK, I've reviewed Wa-Waddles' s li-life and this will ta-take you to the ex-exact day when he was happiest. You can ha-have the wh-whole day, or eight hours any-anyway, bu-but remember to a-avoid me-meeting yourself."

"Will do."

Blendin set the time tape, warned, "It will br-bring you ba-back to the present automatically. Ha-have a g-good time-tr-trip."

The strange noiseless explosion, a moment of spinning disorientation, and poof! there she was, at the edge of the woods behind the Shack. The sun was just rising.

"Out you go," she heard a girl's voice say from the back door.

She saw a rectangle of yellow light. Oh, my God, that's me, in my old sleep shirt! I'm twelve! I'm so young!

Her younger self held the door for Waddles—He's so cute and tiny!—and the pig stepped out, sniffed the air, and waddled over close to the woods to take care of his morning business.

Let's see. I always let him out, then had breakfast, then called him back in, so I have about half an hour before I have to duck out of sight.

"Waddles," she called softly.

He heard and galumphed over to her. He knew her. Her different size, her different voice, didn't matter. She scooped him up. "Oh, I love you!" she said as he curled into a ball and nuzzled her cheek. "Let's go for a walk."

She set him down, and they went down the Mystery Trail, past the Bottomless Pit—not yet fenced off—and as far as the bonfire clearing, where she sat on a log and played with him, laughing through tears. "I'm gonna have to say goodbye, later," she whispered. "But remember, no matter what, I'll always love you!"

Too soon she heard her own younger voice calling, probably for the second time and more loudly, "Waddles!"

"Go on," she told the pig, patting his bottom. He trotted back to the other Mabel, his Mabel.

What day is this? Mabel wondered. What day made him happiest?

She sat too long. Someone spoke, startling her. "Whoops, sorry, didn't know anybody was here!"

Wendy.

Mabel stood up. "I was just, uh—I used to come here when I was a girl—" she began.

"Mabel?" Wendy asked, blinking and staring. "Mabel? Is that you?"

"Haven't changed all that much, have I?" she asked. "Oh, my God, you're so young! Can—can I hug you?"

She was a little bit taller than the fifteen-year-old Wendy, who would add a few inches to her height in the next two years. Mabel couldn't help crying again. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to let anyone see me. Time travel. I came back to—to visit Waddles."

"Oh, man," Wendy said. "Dipper's told me about this kind of stuff! Come on back to the Shack and surprise him!"

"No, I can't," Mabel said. "Don't even tell him you met me. That would cause problems with time."

"Oh."

Something in Wendy's voice hit her then. "Uh—what's wrong, Wendy?"

"Just—just the end of summer," Wendy faltered. "I—I hate that you and Dip are goin' home today."

Oh, my God! Of course! Waddles thought I was gonna leave him, and I nearly had to, but Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford made the bus driver take him aboard—of course he was happiest on that day!

"Oh, yeah," Mabel said. "Our birthday was yesterday. We turned thirteen."

"Technical teens," Wendy said with a ghost of a grin. A tear ran down her cheek.

"But you don't have to cry," Mabel said.

"I—I guess I can tell you a secret," Wendy said. She sat on the log, and Mabel sat beside her. "See, Dipper admitted to me a while back that he has a crush on me. I already knew, but I had to let him down. You know, me fifteen, him twelve. But now he's going away, and I'll never see him again, and—I just can't tell him I'm kinda-sorta in love with him, too. It's hard, Mabel."

Mabel bit her lip. "Listen," she said. "I may get in big trouble because of this, but—OK, I'm gonna say it. You gotta give Dipper a note. Have all his friends here sign it. You sign it, too. Here's the most important part—write on it 'See you next summer.' And wait for him. He'll come back. And he'll grow up, Wendy. And if you wait for him—it's gonna happen. I promise. Just stay in touch, and—most important—when the time comes, the age difference won't mean a thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Trust me, I know. OK, I've got a few hours today. I'm gonna stay close to the Shack and get in as much time with Waddles as I can. Then I'm going back to the future, and thirteen-year-old Mabel and Dipper are going back to Piedmont. But he doesn't just have a crush, Wendy. He really and truly loves you. So write the note, give it to him before he gets on the bus, and things will all work out. Promise me?"

"Yeah. I promise."

"Oh—and tell Grunkle Stan that when the time comes for us to leave, to make sure Waddles gets on the bus, too! I—Oh, I love you like a sister, Wendy! You won't believe how happy you're gonna be with Dip."

"That—that means a lot to me, Mabes," Wendy whispered.

"OK, you'd better get back. Don't say anything to anyone about this. Be sure to do the note thing. Oh, and Wendy—do me one more favor?"

"Sure, what?"

"Tell Pacifica that Mabel's waiting—in the future. Don't explain."

"All right," Wendy said with a lopsided smile. "I'll do it." She mimed zipping her lip.

The day passed. Out of her eight hours, Mabel spent about three in Waddles's company as her brother and her younger self got ready to leave Gravity Falls. She spent more time standing out of sight, watching things unfold—finally the kids coming out, glum, with their suitcases, the bus pulling up, Dipper and Mabel and—finally—Waddles climbing aboard. And all their friends running as far as they could to see the twins and the pig off.

She stood alone near the Shack. The flash came. Benjamin stood there. "How d-did it go?"

"It went good," Mabel said, handing over the time tape. "I said goodbye." She sniffled and a tear ran down her cheek. "I'll still miss him but I—I can handle it now. Uh, how much time has gone by while I—?"

"A m-minute," Blendin said. "Well, I-I g-guess we're e-even."

"Thanks, Blendin. Goodbye."

"N-no, I d-don't think it's g-goodbye," he said, smiling. "I'll s-see you again. In time."

He flashed out of existence.

"Aunt Mabel!" It was red-headed Amanda, running down the hill to meet her. "Hi!"

Mabel swept her up in her arms. "Hi, Sweetie! Where's your bro-bro?"

Squirming, Amanda laughed. "He can't find his shoes!"

Carrying the six-year old up the hill to the Shack, Mabel laughed. "When your dad was six, he had the same problem! All the time! Every morning!" She paused and looked back at the green grave. "Hey, let me tell you a story about the most special pig in the whole world," she said, and they went back to join the family.

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The End