#wirt where is your hat? :7 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

platypan · 5 years ago

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Greg is a Chaos Fairy, Wirt needs to learn to Say No, and Sara's day just got Cursed With Being Interesting--complete!

Chapter 7: All's Well that Ends Well

To Sara’s right, in the darkness, the barely-visible phosphorescent bridge suddenly lit in a whirling column of green light. The darkness withdrew to show a black horse with a mane and tail of smoke, and coals for eyes--standing stiff as a plastic model--Wirt, half off the horse, some extra mysterious flailing appendages, and in the middle of everything, the goblin priest. Wirt and the appendages fell to the cobbles at the end of the bridge with a metallic clatter, and Sara began trying to inch around towards him.

“You dare much, Priest,” said an echoey voice.

“Jacqueline la Corriveau!” he laughed. “I have your cutlass, and your horse, and your love--”

The little pile of appendages and Wirt disentangled, and a very small person in a nun habit dodged around the priest’s arm and on to the bridge, the cutlass flailing in one hand behind her. “Oh, my darling,” she cried. “Jacqueline!”

“You do not have my love, it appears,” said the voice, and a dark arm, green-tinged, slapped over the edge of the bridge. Its knuckles whitened. The nun dropped the cutlass and ran to throw her tiny weight into helping, but washed back in a surge of river water that covered the bridge, and slapped them all with icy spray. When it ebbed, and they wiped their eyes, a woman in rags stood in the center of the bridge. She looked as though she’d been formed of black marble, her hair in a sweeping bun of dangling braids, her jaw defiant, and her every motion graceful. Sara’s spine straightened of its own accord.

“Are you well,” the nun threw her arms around the spirit’s waist.

“Well, I’m dead.” She held the nun, stroking the head of her habit. “Where have you been.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do,” the nun started to sob, and the spirit rocked her, eyes fixed on the priest. The whirlwind of green light whipped their clothes around.

“What do you do here, godless man of the church?”

“Even in death, you are indeed a beauti--”

“Do not continue,” she advised. “Why have you taken my old friend captive?”

Sara edged along the edge of the path, as far as possible from the bridge, the green windy light, and Deckenbrode. She crept around the front of the horse, having a vague idea about the danger of kicking hooves, and grabbed Wirt’s shoulder. “Are you alright?!”

“Are you? Where’s Greg?!” he whispered back, reaching out, and then yanking his hand back. “I--I think we both--” he oofed as Greg scuttled under the motionless horse to throw both arms around him. “Greg!”

“You guys have to stop wandering off,” Greg whispered, grabbing for Sara, and the three of them squeezed each other for a few seconds before Wirt and Sara leapt away, blushing hotly.

“What’s going on,” Sara jerked her thumb at the bridge. “I mean I’ve met Deckenbrode, but what.” Her hand accidentally brushed his, and they both jerked away.

Wirt pointed, shielding his mouth. “That’s the priest?!”

“Yeah, he attacked a witch,” Sara whispered back.

“She’s so much better than our witch, Wirt,” Greg sighed.

“Anway!” Wirt flapped his arms, quietly, to himself. “The priest is evil! He framed her--” here he pointed at the taller woman on the bridge, “--That’s Jacqueline, the ghost, la Corriveau--for murder, and now she haunts the bridge--”

“Oh, we’ve heard about her,” Greg nodded, holding his frog up to see over the bridge railing they were crouched behind.

Wirt pulled him back down. “Yeah, okay, the person hugging her is her ex-fiancee, the nun, Henriette-I-did-not-get-a-last-name, and this is her horse--friend--the orc is controlling it with some--some God thing--” he knocked on the statue-like leg they hid behind, “--and the orc priest’s trying to steal her pirate treasure, from when she was a pirate.”

“Pirates,” Greg bounced on his toes.

“What in heaven’s name,” Phoebe landed on Sara’s head. “He is rather an orc, isn’t he.”

“This is Phoebe,” Sara waved upwards.

“I am a ruby-crested kinglet,” Phoebe announced and Wirt’s eyes narrowed as he mouthed it, nodding.

“You will submit,” the priest was shouting, his tiny tail flicking back and forth in excitement.

“That orc’s tail’s got a blue bow on it,” Greg pointed out, fascinated, and Phoebe blinked.

“That it does.”

“Why are you even here,” Jacqueline la Corriveau called back, her rags and hair wafting around her.

He made a slavering noise around his tusks. “I won’t give your horse back until you tell me the secret.”

“What bloody secret,” the column of green light whipped faster.

“Sara,” Phoebe cheeped, flitting to land on the horse to see what was going on. “Wirt, also, sorry--I think we should either be on that side of the bridge, or we ought to leave now. Deckenbrode is worse than--”

“I know!” Sara whispered, leaning out between the bridge railing and the horse.

Wirt swallowed, eyeballing the middle of the bridge, “...that huge goblin man is taking up this whole end of the bridge. We could get a rock, and--” he set his jaw, swallowing.

“Okay!” Greg leapt to his feet, and Sara grabbed them both back.

“Calm down!”

“I got this,” said Phoebe, whipping in to scratch Deckenbrode’s face, and Sara grabbed Greg’s hand, he grabbed Wirt’s, and they dashed onto the bridge and across to where the nun was finally pulling away, wiping her eyes. She beckoned them close, and stood in front of them, holding the cutlass.

The priest roared, swiping the air with his four-inch claws, but Phoebe dodged his flailing, yanking hair out of his ear with her beak, and flitted over to land on Wirt’s hat. “It’s certainly a good thing kinglets are such agile fliers,” she panted, as he stomped around, shaking the stonework of the whole bridge. “Holy tomatoes.” She exchanged an indignant chirrupy noise with Sara’s fierce nod, turning in a little circle around Wirt’s hat to catalog Greg, Wirt, and Sara safely in the middle of the bridge. Jaqueline and Henriette stood before them, and there were at least a couple of yards of bridge between them and the roaring priest.

“The treasure, spirit,” he snarled, smacking the Cheval Gauvin on the shoulder. “Surrender it, or I order this demon to kill that disobedient sister.”

“There is no treasure,” Jacqueline le Corriveau screamed back, her eyes lighting with green fire from within, and her arms stretching toward him.

“I think there is,” said the nun, touching her shoulder, holding out the cutlass between her forefinger and thumb.

“Henriette,” Jacqueline paused. “My love. No. She sent me the Cheval Gauvin, and the cutlass.” She smelled of sulphur, but considering her state of being, thankfully nothing worse.

“There is more to the cutlass,” the nun sighed, pulling out a pair of glasses and squinting at the hilt, before tucking them away again.

“--don’t cut yourself--” Jacqueline reached out, and Henriette took her hand and held it.

“With this salt water I summon thee,” she rubbed the butt of the cutlass up her cheekbone, and then knelt, and slid it spinning along the ground at the goblin priest. He snatched it up, holding it over his head, as the edge of it burst into black flame.

Jacqueline yelled “Henry, what are you doing?!” --and the goblin priest screamed.

The flames flared up in lines over his arm, and body, then vanished in smoke. He smacked at his face as it distorted, choking and gagging, until a watermelon-sized glob of smoke bounced out and spun in place at the foot of the bridge, before forming into a sinuous column of smoke, vaguely-human shaped, with horns, or maybe antlers.

“Wowza Fudgesicles,” Greg whispered to Phoebe, who had beeped, startled.

“Let’s just step back a bit further,” she suggested, and Wirt and Sara hauled the struggling Greg back another few feet along the bridge.

“...hello, my Jacqueline,” the new horned smoke-creature hissed, its voice all gibbering echoes. Sara shuddered, suddenly nostalgic for Auntie Greenleaf’s calm chorus. “My love, my--”

“You,” Jacqueline stepped back. “I owe you nothing, you set me free with no--”

“I will have your heart one day,” the shadow grew, spreading. “Its brilliance shall burn me.”

“Why can’t these people keep their feelings off you,” Henriette frowned, stepping in front of her.

“She is really pretty,” Sara touched her curls, frowning, and Wirt closed his eyes, flailing his hand at hers a few times before successfully grasping it. He gave it a squeeze.

“Just as--you are--pretty as--” he tried. “Oh my god.”

“Do you think so?” she grinned, watching as Jacqueline la Corriveau stood shoulder to shoulder with her nun, holding hands.

“Where is my treasure,” the priest roared.

“Oh, that,” the smoke-creature sighed. “Are you prepared for the trade?”

“What,” Jacqueline frowned, raising her hand again.

“The trade, of course, I’m not a storage depot,” it sighed, and the breeze blew hot dry air enough to dry everyone’s eyes.

Jacqueline frowned behind her at Wirt, Phoebe, Greg, and Sara, drawing her nun forward, so the two of them were braced between the shadow-creature and the children. Phoebe flitted forward to land on the nun habit. “If we need to, I can distracted him again while you go for the cutlass.”

“We were not aware of a trade,” Jacqueline told him.

“And yet you are here, with my horse, and the cutlass on which I inscribed my sigil.” It sounded doubtful.

“...the Cheval Gauvin is yours?” she asked shakily, and Deckenbrode stepped in front of it.

“My shadows, in trade for precious matter of your world,” the smoke figure agreed. “I see it has not become any more of a conversationalist.”

“No, it has,” Jacqueline’s eyes shone. “It is only controlled, right now.”

“Take him back, and bring forth the treasure, I command you, spirit!” the orc-priest brandished his cross, and the shadow-creature focused on him without turning, growing to loom over his head.

“You command me,” it whispered, the strange echoes of its voice giggling and sobbing. “You, a--” the side facing Jacqueline leaned closer, separating from the rest. “What is it, actually?”

“A fallen priest,” breathed the nun. “A murderer, and a thief. Transformed to a goblin, for giving insult to Auntie Greenleaf.”

“Oh. She does tend to do that. Quite large,” the segment of shadow looming over Deckenbrode leaned closer, many of its echoes sounding pleased. “A fallen priest, you say. How interesting.”

“You can’t have Cheval Gauvin,” Jacqueline whispered, then took a deep breath. “You can’t. You can keep the treasure.”

“I demand you release the treasure!” Deckenbrode swung at the shadow, and passed through, and it wriggled.

“It would never do to inconvenience you, my sweet Jacqueline,” it giggled with a thousand voices. “I will take this befouled man of god in his place, he looks...delicious.” It whirled around Deckenbrode, who shrieked, before both vanished with the sound of a thunderclap. The Cheval Gauvin came out of its daze with a prance upon the cobbles, nearly sliding into the river as it shook itself thoroughly. Jacqueline ran to throw her arms around its neck, and it nuzzled her braids. Where Deckenbrode had stood were chests, and sacks, a pile of scrolls, and books with worked metal covers stacked high as Sara’s waist. Phoebe flitted over to investigate. “...there’s a bag of durian fruit here. I see why he gave it back. I say, your majesty--”

“Oh, don’t,” Jacqueline sighed.

Phoebe hopped around among the bags, and tugged at the buckle closing a book. “We were aided by Auntie Greenleaf, and aided you in turn. Could you speak to her? Offer her--something?”

“Certainly, I have no use for it,” Jacqueline hugged her horse friend tighter.

“The treasure.” It nosed at Jacqueline’s face, lipping at her hair. “I am...forfeit, then?”

“No,” she rested the flat of her hand against its nose, rubbing gently. “No, it--it took Deckenbrode.”

“...that was an option?”

“You knew there was treasure,” Henriette approached, frowning. “Why didn’t you--”

“I knew I had been traded,” it shook its head, snorting. “You overestimate the intelligence of a lopped-off pile of shadows. It took time for my queen to teach me speech.”

Henriette reached out to it, then patted Jacqueline’s shoulder instead. “You’d have been --absorbed?”

“The marvelous Cheval Gauvin would have been no more,” it hung its head. “Do not throw yourself off the bridge, however, for--”

“You are well,” Jacqueline stepped back, smiling. “You will remain well, for I do not believe you can take ill, and I doubt you’ll age.”

“Oh bells,” the nun sighed. “Neither of you two beauties will, but I certainly shall.”

The shadow-horse huffed, sidling restlessly, then butted her with its nose. “Of course I shall fetch you,” it said stiffly. “When you die. As I did my lady.”

“Oh!” Jacqueline and Henriette both started to cry, throwing their arms around its neck, and it flicked its tail.

Wirt rolled his eyes. “Look how self-satisfied it is.”

“Wirt, you were riding a horse,” Greg gasped. “We had to rub magic tiger juice on our feet and it didn’t even turn us into tigers--”

“And you met that orc, oh my god, I’m the worst brother ever--” he grabbed at his hair, yanked on the hand Sara was holding, looked at their clasped hands, and stalled out, eyes wide.

“I kept an eye on them,” Phoebe flitted over and bumped his cheek with her head.

“And I have not been introduced to all of you.” Jacqueline smiled, wiping her eyes, one arm around the Cheval Gauvin, one around Henriette the nun. “Are you four all right?”

“Don’t forget my frog. He’s named Sara,” Greg waved him overhead, and Sara punched his shoulder. “We are all fine!”

“I am Phoebe Snetsinger,” Phoebe poofed up again to twice her size, then fluttered her wings and tail, preening. “Thank you for your assistance.” She sidled along Wirt’s shoulder to see everyone.

“That one’s Wirt--” Henriette pointed.

“Hullo,” Wirt waved worriedly.

“I met him when your horse asked him to rob my church.”

The Cheval Gauvin snorted. “Just as well I did, Henry, or Deckenbrode would be here yelling at our pirate queen, and she’d be trying to tug him into the water--”

“He was so heavy,” Jacqueline sighed.

“Oh no,” Henriette sat down, abruptly, in the middle of the bridge. “He’s dead, or as good as, oh no!”

“Oh, she’s a nun now,” Cheval Gauvin leaned his head down, and Jacqueline sat next to her. “She feels bad about things like murder!”

“Not that, I mean, he was terrible, I wouldn’t have killed him, but--”

“I would,” muttered the horse. “I still think he publicised Jacqueline was hiding here, somehow. How did pirates keep finding her? Did he take out an advertisement? I’d certainly have killed him.”

“I tried my best, he weighed a ton, I couldn’t heft him over the edge--” Jacqueline told it, behind her hand. Phoebe chirped sympathetically.

“Not that--” Henriette rolled her eyes. “He was also blackmailing people--I’d almost gotten at his records, when he got thrown out of the church,” she sighed, waving her hand at the treasure pile. “Now there’s all this money, but I don’t know who to give it to, and they aren’t likely to tell me!”

“You were investigating him?!”

“Well, of course, I wasn’t called to love God, I was called to love you,” she bit her lips, then leaned up and kissed Jacqueline’s cheek. “He was hunting you! My mother did set me on course for the Church, but I...I waited by the window, hoping you’d ride by, ready for the evidence I had compiled. And then I hear you’re married-- ”

“Well,” Jacqueline ducked her head, clearing her throat. “That was actually…”

“He told her he was my queen’s second mate,” the horse’s face lowered into the conversation. “To share in the treasure, he needed only her name on a paper, he said.”

“Of course he comes to call and thinks I’m hiding it somewhere,” Jacqueline leaned her face in her hands. “He tore up my floor.”

“He threatened her with an axe,” the horse clacked its shoes against the cobbles, huffing. “And that priest kept lurking around--”

“You poor child,” Phoebe scuttled over to Jacqueline’s hand.

“We brought his records!” Sara clapped, and they all turned to stare at her, waving with one hand, the other rifling her bag. “I’m sorry, it sounds like you two have oh, just, so much to talk about! But--we do! Have it!” She held up the book they’d stolen from Auntie Greenleaf.

“How on earth,” Wirt blinked.

“We got sent to steal too,” Greg patted his leg. “We’re just a family of bandits.”

“So,” Wirt settled between Sara and Greg, blushing as Sara’s shoulder brushed his own.

Greg shivered. “I’m not cold,” he announced, but after Phoebe flitted up to the ear of the Cheval Gauvin, it huffed a snicker. Its hooves rang against the cobbles as it walked carefully over to them, and dropped its butt to sit just behind Greg, radiating heat like a hot coal. Wirt edged closer, and the horse leaned to nudge Sara after him.

“Thank you,” Wirt looked up, slowly reaching out to pat a mostly-substantial leg. “Uh, so,” he tried again, looking over at the ghost and the nun, who were leaning against each other. “Um, would--how did--we’re really confused.”

“Yeah, how did you lose your pirate treasure but your girlfriend knew where it was all along,” Greg’s lips firmed disapprovingly.

“I was never a pirate,” Jacqueline scoffed--the horse raised its head, and she narrowed her eyes at it. “I--I am, I admit, in a way...the Pirate Queen.”

Wirt opened his mouth, frowning, and met with a peck from Phoebe, and a swift elbow from Sara and Greg. “Hush, Wirt, she’s a queen.”

“I am hardly that, in reality,” Jacqueline sighed, and Henriette laid her hand over Jacqueline’s softly glowing one, as she continued. “This all started when I was born, at sea. My mother went into labour out of fear, they told me--there was a storm, at night, and she wasn’t used to the rock of the decks. And then the ship shuddered--we’d been boarded, and, we learned later--”

“I love this story,” said the demon horse. Its eyes flamed attentively, and Jacqueline reached up to rub its nose.

“We were boarded, as I say. The crew said the pirate captain walked across to us, stepping from chain to chain after the volleys of grappling hooks. Her coat flapped in the wind, her hair was shorn to her head like a prisoner--and that’s what she was, we were told, later. She began her career sinking a ship transporting slaves to the New World. They say she used her chains to tangle the former captain’s fine leather boots, and swung him so hard out to sea he skipped across the surface of the water for three whole days, until his clothes had been torn from his wrinkled white body, and the hot sun of the equator set him in flames.”

“What was her name?” Sara blinked eyes wide as Greg��s.

“She told my mother it was Jacqueline,” Jacqueline sighed, and used her torn sleeve to buff the edge of the cutlass. “As my mother laboured belowdecks, my cries drew the attention of the pirate captain--”

“Were they singing?” Greg asked.

“What? No,” she blinked, and the whole bridge went a little dimmer as her eyelids flicked over the flames in her sockets.

“They weren’t real pirates, then,” he put his hands on his hips. “I know a better pirate story--a cabin boy--”

“Greg, stop,” Wirt hissed out the side of his mouth.

“He drills the side of a ship and sinks it,” Greg glowered back.

“It’s a good idea,” Jacqueline sighed, leaning into her nun. “I almost wish your cabin boy had been there.”

“Oh, no!” cried the nun, clasping the damp, forest green glowing hand in her own. “I can’t wish that.”

“Sometimes, I have,” Jacqueline sighed, but squeezed her hand. “Their captain broke through the wall of my mother’s cabin with an axe, and her high heeled boots, and we were struck dumb with terror...until she bent to pinch my cheek, and I screamed with such force her large hat flew out of the porthole.”

“Oh, no, her hat,” Greg clasped his hands over his mouth.

“Then...she said she would let us go.”

“Whaaaat?” Greg and Sara gasped, Phoebe bounced in place, and the horse huffed.

“She said she had always wanted a child, except for the mess, and the noise, and the very long time it takes us to become reasonable.”

“That’s all so true,” Wirt nodded, and Greg frowned over.

“So she would not sever our screaming heads from our bodies, she said, provided--” here she laughed, leaning her head in her hand. Greg, Sara, Wirt, the Cheval Gauvin, and the nun leaned in, holding their collective breath. “--provided, she said, I became her daughter. I was to take her name, and captain her ship--”

“Holy moly,” Greg put in, and she nodded. Wirt and Sara, both observing the ghost and the nun’s interlocked fingers, glanced sidelong at each other, and then stared at the ground, cheeks flushed.

“Of course,” she sighed, “--my mother agreed. What was she to say, to the woman who cut off her own arm to commission one with knives for fingers and two muskets for bones? Who used a lead ball instead of a glass eye, so if she ran out of shot, she could pull one last deadly round from her face? She, who tied a string of fuse to her heel so her body could be set as a bomb to cover her ship’s retreat?”

“She sounds terrifying,” Wirt squeaked, grabbing at the shoulder of Sara’s coat, and she clasped his hand, swallowing.

“Oh, she was,” Jacqueline sighed. “Mother said the lace of her jacket was smoldering, and occasionally she’d glare down, and the flames would pause.”

“She kinda sounds like a pro wrestler,” said Phoebe, and Jacqueline’s flame-eyes shuttered again in a startled blink.

“I--I suppose. I pity her opponent, in that case.”

“Anyway,” the horse put in, blowing its lips.

“Anyway.” She nodded. “She obtained my mother’s family name, and town, and as she left, flung the smoldering coat at the head of our first mate. It flared into an inferno the moment it left her hands--”

“Was she a demon,” Sara frowned at the horse.

“--and my mother lived in fear of the day she would visit, and claim me for her own, unknowing whether it would be my fifth birthday, or my fifteenth, or a dying, bedside request--that I come, and be her pirate daughter, and do howsoever she willed.”

“I have a couple relatives like that,” Sara muttered, and Wirt glanced at her wide-eyed, then muffled a giggle. She turned red.

“Wirt’s girlfriend--” Greg put his hands on his waist, ignoring their sputters. “I want to hear about the Pirate Queen.”

“She died,” Jacqueline stared into the darkness behind them. “I understand she dueled a cannon.”

“A what,” Wirt blinked.

“Wow,” Greg breathed.

“We do meet the most interesting people,” Phoebe whispered to Sara, who covered a laugh.

“She had told everyone where to find me--” Jacqueline swallowed hard, and the nun gasped, pulling her into a hug. “--and they came looking.”

“That’s when she met me,” the Cheval Gauvin wriggled, marching its front hooves against the cobblestones of the bridge. Greg and Phoebe yelped, and it snorted.

“She bid her steed bring me her cutlass,” Jacqueline nodded. “How she rode a horse on a pirate ship I don’t know--”

“I am no common horse,” put in the horse. “She rode me along the chains, over to the ships they attacked, and bullets passed through me like smoke.”

“Also terrifying,” Wirt whispered, then swallowed as Sara squeezed his hand.

“While she fought, I kicked down doors, freeing prisoners and claiming treasure.”

“This treasure,” Jacqueline sniffed. “I received only the cutlass. I knew how to use it--my mother did that much, for her promise, she found me teachers, and made sure I could ride, fight, shoot, and do sums.”

“Oh!” Greg nodded. “For the treasure.”

She nodded back. “She was uncertain what a pirate queen would need. I had a great many singing lessons, of course, and chemistry, in case she made her explosives herself.”

“Talk about me again,” said the Cheval Gauvin, and she sighed.

“...she had told everyone I would inherit her empire. Her ship--”

“It sank,” the demon horse put in helpfully. “But we can steal a new one!”

“--her treasure, which she failed to include instructions for--”

“Mostly she freed slaves,” it flicked its ears.

“In the end, all I had were a cutlass, the Cheval Gauvin--” it edged away from its pile of children and pranced in a circle, “--and a whole lot of pirates who thought she’d somehow given me a massive pile of gold.”

“Oh no,” Sara breathed, as the horse carefully eased its way back between them.

“Indeed,” Jacqueline laughed, her smile as lit from within as her eye sockets, bright in her greeny-brown face. “They came in ones and twos at first, and sometimes they were polite. They tore my house apart, hurt my family--so I left that place, that none should be hurt for my sake, and came here. I was suspicious of everyone…”

“Understandably, my dear!” Phoebe cheeped.

“--and eventually, they found me again. I would see them following, and we would lead them to places where the bank of the river was weak, or out into the bogs, where a cart and four oxen can disappear from this world in the time it takes to draw breath to scream. Sometimes, I took up the cutlass, and fought them myself.”

“I want to learn the cutlass,” Greg announced.

“No, Greg,” Wirt said automatically, and Greg dropped to the ground with a long sigh.

“I met my love, when her mother saw me riding into town, and asked that I lure her from her novels--”

“I didn’t read so many novels,” the nun ducked her head, her cheeks already too dark to see a blush, but Jacqueline pretended to touch one and be burned.

“Oh, the heat!”

“Hush, you,” she hid her face in the rags of Jacqueline’s shoulder, not appearing to mind the sulphurous smell.

“I’m glad to see the pirates didn’t get your girl, at least,” Phoebe fluffed up, her tail twitching.

“They did not,” Henriette beamed up at Jacqueline. “And with your book--” she beamed at Sara, who was smiling vaguely at Jacqueline, “--we may pay back the people Deckenbrode has harmed, and make ready for the new priest. She should ride in in a few days--she was very concerned at my account of the people here.”

“We might rebuild my house,” Jacqueline sat her chin on her hands.

“But aren’t you a nun?” Greg frowned at Henriette. “Can you just--move out, like that?”

“I haven’t actually taken vows,” she shrugged. “But they can try and stop me.” She leaned into Jacqueline, who bent her head to kiss her cheek, then her mouth, then her forehead. Henriette giggled.

“Actually,” Phoebe fluttered to Wirt’s knee, the most central of leg options. “It’s about time for us to go.”

“But it’s dark,” Sara frowned around in the dim green light of the ghost lanterns.

“Yes,” said Phoebe, “But we’re nearly out of time.”

Wirt frowned at her, then blinked, and stood up, brushing himself off. Greg hopped amiably to his feet, and collected his frog--it had decided to stare at Jacqueline too, after she caught it a large fly with one swift wave of her hand, and held it out by the wings. Sara got up to shake hands with Henriette and Jacqueline, and accept a nuzzle from the Cheval Gauvin. His whuffed breath felt like she’d waved her hand under a broiler.

“Thank you,” Henriette told Wirt, and then Sara, and Greg, before drawing them all into a hug.

“From I also,” Jacqueline stepped close to Sara, narrowed her eyes, and then awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Thank you for obtaining the book. It will save Henry, and the people of this village, much heartache.”

Sara nodded, wide-eyed.

“Would you like to kiss my frog?” asked Greg, of Jacqueline, and Henriette dove between them, while Phoebe ji-ji-jeeted what sounded like cackling laughter.

“No! No kissing of frogs! I just got her back!”

“I do not...usually kiss frogs?” Jacqueline blinked as Henriette flexed her muscles at the frog. She was barely taller than Greg, when he had the kettle on his head.

“Well, he didn’t say he wanted to be a prince anyway,” Greg huffed off toward the end of the bridge.

The Cheval Gauvin nudged Wirt. “You were much more helpful than the other children I kidnapped. You may go home.” Wirt stared at it, tugging at Sara’s sleeve, and they backed away from Henriette, who was waving, with big tears running down her cheeks, and Jacqueline, who was hugging her, face buried in her hair. The Cheval Gauvin was nuzzling Henriette’s other side, and she hugged its face.

Phoebe flitted to Wirt’s head. “It isn’t actually that far,” she chirped, and Greg nodded, trundling along.

“I guess it’s just as well we came?” Sara glanced over at Wirt, grimacing. “I mean. They needed that book. People were being blackmailed.”

“I’m so glad you came,” Wirt beamed at her, stumbled, and turned the color of communion wine as she caught him around the waist.

“It’s dark, maybe we should, um,” she held out her hand, and he approached it with his own like her thumb had a mousetrap mechanism. When they finally connected, they both stumbled, and Phoebe hopped off to land on Greg.

“It’s okay, they’re just gross like that,” he told her.

Greg’s natural pace wasn’t hurtling, exactly, but they were making fairly good time when Phoebe’s feathers caught Sara’s attention. “Uh, Phoebe?” She held out her hand, and Phoebe fluttered to it. She was nearly weightless, the only reminder of her presence her tiny claws. “Um, are you--are you glowing?”

“It looks rather fetching, doesn’t it?” she preened, her quick motions leaving silvery afterimages as their eyes tried to adjust to the dark.

“It looks like some of you is floating away,” Greg squinted in, and she cocked her head.

“Well, yes, there is that. We should keep walking, before I’m gone.”

Wirt swallowed. “Are--are you the bluebird?”

“What a limited imagination that woman had!” Phoebe fluttered indignantly. “A kinglet, I told her. I grew up around kinglets, they make me think of home.”

“You’re dead?” Greg asked, catching up to proceedings, and she chirped.

“In life, I was an ornithologist. Phoebe Snetsinger. I was the first person to spot over 8,000 different bird species. When I found myself here, I--it was fascinating, being a bird. Even if wasn’t a kinglet.”

Sara kept walking, uncertain what else to do. “...I guess you really won’t perch on my head in class, or come to the window when I sing,” she laughed, sniffling.

Phoebe flitted to her shoulder, and fluffed, butting her cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the entire truth, Sara. I thought it might--undo me, you know? I quite liked being a kinglet, and traveling with you.”

“Snetsinger’s a good name,” Greg whispered, wide-eyed.

“Wirt,” she flittered her tail. “Thank you for your help. I found your friends, and guided them, protected them, and gave them good counsel.”

“Thank you?” he swallowed.

“Yes, thank you, Phoebe,” Sara nodded, squeezing his hand tightly. Wirt smacked Greg in the kettle.

“Thank you, Phoebe. Say goodbye, Snetsinger.” Greg held up his frog, and said goodbye again, in a deeper voice.

“Greg, and Sara, the funeral song was very nice. You were very good with that bottle, Sara. And Greg, I’d be honored to be the momentary namesake for your frog.”

“Maybe I should name him all the good names together,” Greg cocked his head in thought.

“Well, I’m not quite gone,” Phoebe fluttered her wings, checking. “How about that song, Greg?”

“I’ll finish singing it, then,” Greg glowered up at Wirt, and his frog started singing in harmony.

“There was a ship that sailed

all on the Lowland Sea,

and the name of our ship

was the Golden Vanity

and we feared she would be taken

by the Spanish enemy

as she sailed in the Lowland,

Lowland, low

as she sailed in the Lowland sea.

Then up stepped our cabin boy

and boldly outspoke he

and he said to our captain

"what would you give to me

If I would swim alongside

of the Spanish enemy

and sink her in the Lowland,

Lowland, low

and sink her in the Lowland, sea

"Oh, I would give you silver

and I would give you gold,

And my own fairest daughter

your bonny bride shall be,

If you will swim alongside

of the Spanish enemy

and sink her in the Lowland,

Lowland low

And sink her in the Lowland sea.

The boy he made him read

And overboard sprang he

and he swam alongside

of the Spanish enemy

And with his brace and auger

in her side he bored holes three,

And he sunk her in the Lowland,

Lowland Low,

And he sunk her in the Lowland Sea.

Then quickly he swam back

to the cheering of the crew

But the captain would not heed him

for his promise he did rue,

and he scorned his poor entreatings

when loudly he did sue,

And he left him in the Lowland,

Lowland, Low

And he left him in the Lowland Sea.

Then quickly he swam ‘round

to the port side

And up to his messmates

full bitterly he cried,

"Oh, messmates, draw me up

for I'm drifting with the tide,

And I'm sinking in the Lowland,

Lowland, Low

I'm sinking in the lowland sea."

Then his messmates drew him up,

But on the deck he died,

And they stitched him in his hammock

Which was so fair and wide,

And they lowered him overboard

And he drifted with the tide,

And he sank in the Lowland,

Lowland, low

And he sank in the Lowland sea.”

“Thank you for that entertainingly horrible song,” were Phoebe’s last words, as the faint breeze blew away the last of her glow.

“They did try to sink pirates,” Greg rolled his eyes.

“Goodbye, Phoebe!” Sara yelled.

When they crested the hill, they could see the parking lot of the school just over the ridge. Wirt and Sara boosted Greg and his frog up, and then Wirt quailed at Sara’s approach, so she hoisted him around the waist, and pushed up on his shoe as he scrambled. When he flailed his arms down for her, she felt her cheeks heating. She set her shoulders and took his hand, scrambling up. In her backpack, the gollywhopper egg cracked.

The first bell of the day was ringing.

#Over the Garden Wall #greg & frog #wirt #platypan #platypan fic #platypan FINISHED FIC #they didn't want to be here but they're doing their best #talking horses are sketchy #Adelaide had a weird obsession with bluebirds #Stop stealing everything y'all #not everyone is a pirate GREG

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