Dipper's Guide to The Unexplained

[Birdsie]

Dipper, following his sibling's footsteps backed up, very slowly. Once Dipper heard Mabel trip, he turned around. If it were normal circumstances he'd probably comment on it, but he did not want to make their situation even more hopeless than it already was. He backed up, standing beside his sister. He heard her whisper and turning around to see the eye-bats taking off, he panicked and screamed. This prompted the swarm to move forward even faster than they already were. He started running himself, but still allowed Mabel to take his hand. He was disoriented and lost in the swarm of eyes, each and every single one of them.


Once they were outside, most of the bats flew out in random directions. He looked to the camera and said "And, uhm... those were the eye-bats. Cut..." he whispered the last word, looking at Mabel and gesticulating with his left hand to make her stop recording.

 

[Lady Midnight]

Once they were out of the cave, Mabel took several deep breaths to calm her nerves. If she had to describe what had just happened, she would have described it as getting chased out a cave by bats. Only way more terrifying. Once Mabel stopped the recording, she looked up. "You know if they weren't so horrifying in a group, I would have liked to study one of them. But only one." She sighed and fell to her knees holding the camera, mentally exhausted from the fright they had just escaped from. "That didn't take long at all. We can still find something else to record if you want." As soon as she finished suggesting her plan to Dipper, she saw another shadow rushing past the trees.


She suddenly stood up and gave the camera to Dipper. "Or better yet. I may have found our next subject." She then took off in the direction of where she saw the shadow take off to. "Hey wait!" Once she was deeper into the woods, she looked around. It seemed she had lost them again. "Peanut Brittle!" She yelled in frustration and then sighed in defeat. However, as she took a step to return to her twin, she heard leaves rustling in various directions. Maybe she hadn't lost the shadow.

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper took a few deep breaths, still panting after the whole... adventure, you could call it that. He listened to what his sister said and responded "Yeah... because Eye-Bats aren't terrifying out-of-group... in particular one... When it glares at you... and you study it..." rather sarcastically. Dipper developed, what he had believed to be a Phobia of Eyebats, due to today's events. "They're absolutely horrifying, aren't they?" he asked his sister, to see if she agreed with his outlook.


Once she ran after the direction of the shadow, Dipper asked "H-hey, Mabel, where are you going?" then after a moment, Dipper reluctantly ran after his twin, not wanting her to get hurt in the forest, especially that it would probably be his fault, or at least attributed to him. He could not let Mabel do something stupid, after Grunkle Stanford's warning. "Wait, Mabel!!!" he yelled, running after her as fast as he could. He caught up to her, frustrated with her running. "Why did you come here?" he asked, panting from all of the running and walking up to her from behind, slowly.

 

[Lady Midnight]

Mabel didn't answer her brother at first, continuing to look around as she placed her hand up. "I followed the shadow here. I figured I could follow it now. It can be another segment for your video." She suggested as she looked behind a tree. That was part of the reason. The other part was that she wanted to show her brother that she could be just as serious as him and Grunkle Ford when it came to mysteries. Mabel turned to Dipper and saw the tree rustling behind him. "Behind you!" She yelled and ran past him. "Hey. Wait up!"


Once she stopped running, Mabel looked around only to find that she was alone. She sighed in frustration. She was following the shadow, but she still couldn't catch the creature. Unless, the shadows were just shadows themselves. She turned to Dipper and called. "Hey. Are there any pages about shadows? If not, I think I found something you can add!" She waved at her twin grinning happily.

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper looked at Mabel, she was running after the shadow again... Dipper reluctantly ran after her and yelled "Wait up!" as he did not want to run more. Eventually he caught up to his sister, then whilst panting he responded "Pages about Shadows? I don't even know what this thing looks like, Mabel." with an irritated tone. Dipper sighed, hearing the remark about adding them to the book. Grunkle Ford would be so proud. Dipper looked at Mabel and smiled "Great idea! I'll look into it."


Dipper started looking through the books, trying to find anything about shadow creatures. He was curious of their appearance, as only Mabel had seen any of them so far. Dipper's brain was split apart at this point. A small portion of him was telling him: She's just playing a trick on you. But the other one was saying: She has no reason to lie, she's your sister. So Dipper decided to believe her.

 

[Lady Midnight]

Mabel saw the trust in her brother's face and smiled from ear to ear. She continued to eagerly search for the shadow, a part of her scared that they wouldn't reveal themselves. The last thing she wanted was her brother to distrust her from now to the end of summer their senior year. "Oh shadows! Shadows! Come out, come out, wherever you are. Your new best friend Mabel is here~" She called out in a sing songy voice as she skipped around. Wherever she landed, she checked underneath what was nearby for anything. "Shadows~! Shadows~! Shadows!" Her calls were going from whimsical to somewhat annoyed.


"You know what, you aren't going to make me look like a fool in front of my brother. I'll find you or my name isn't Mabel!" She said as she stomped on a shadow that was being projected off of a tree. As her foot hit the ground, she heard a yelp of pain and immediately turned to Dipper. "Are you alright?" At the sight of her brother standing or doing whatever he was doing, she looked confused. She swore that she had heard something. She looked to her left and right and then looked down. She had an idea and raised her foot up to slam it down on the ground. As her foot hit the ground once more, she heard the same yelp of pain followed by a voice.


"I understand that you're standing on top of me, but could you please not do that? I already have a headache from those wretched eye bats..." The shadow seemed to bob up and down as Mabel heard the voice. Her first action was to walk away from it apologizing before freezing. The shadow...it had spoken to her! "Dipper! Dipper! I found it! I found the shadow!"


(I am so sorry it took me this long to post. D: )

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper followed his sister, much more slowly. His sight couldn't get away from the journal that he was currently looking through, with focus in his eyes he tried his best at following his sister and tracking her with the corner of his field of vision, and sounds that she made. It was much easier thanks to her calls towards the shadow creature, or creatures that they were both after. He sighed, lowering the book a bit and he looked at Mabel with a face of distress and irritance. "Nothing about shadows!" he proclaimed loudly, following after Mabel.


He was confused when he saw his sister turning around to him. He looked at her, his eyes widening up a bit. "I'm fine...? Why are you asking?" he spoke up, and looked at her stomping the ground again. When he heard the voice that was unknown to him, he flinched and exclaimed "Woah, who-" but paused hearing his sister explain. "Yeah, I can see that... or..." Dipper paused, thinking and changing his sight towards where Mabel stomped the ground. He took a few steps forward, closing the journal and lowering it completely. "...Hear that." he finished, then looked at his sibling. "Good job, Mabel!" he said, with a genuinely excited voice. He looked at the shadow of the tree and asked "So... what are you? All I can tell is that you're sentient and intelligent." with a curious voice.

 

[Lady Midnight]

The shadow shifted a bit before responding to Dipper's question. "Well....I'm a shadow kid. You ever seen a shadow before?" Mabel was awestruck by her discovery as she listened to it. "Where did you come from? What can you do? Are you magical?" She asked the last part with her hands up in the air and wiggling her fingers. "Uh...I project a shade from objects. You kids sure you've seen shadows before? Or do I have to be the one to teach you?" The shadow seemed thoroughly concerned at the twins' question before shifting over and blending into Dipper's shadow. It took it's form and waved at Dipper from the ground.


"See? Nothing but a shadow. No magic here. Nothing unusual. Nope." The shadow said as if it had just performed a magic trick. Mabel looked at the shadow and then her brother. Even she saw something wrong. She didn't know whether to be amazed that it could transfer from object to object or that it honestly believed that it was a normal thing for shadows to live and speak.

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper shook his head and said "I did see shadows, but I never saw a talking shadow, that is sentient and capable of speech." with a confused and still very curious tone. Dipper flinched when the shadow morphed into his own, and waved at him. Dipper took a step back in fear, which could only be natural for such a situation. "Hi....." he muttered out, in confusion and wary of anything that could happen. Dipper quickly came to his sense, realizing that the shadow was not going to hurt them, and that it wasn't aggressive. Dipper pulled up his hand to his chin and slightly tilted his torso towards the shadow, as his eyelids came closer together, he started thinking.


After a moment, Dipper decided to simply ask. "So, how come you can understand what I'm saying, and how are you capable of making sound?" he bluntly asked, but still in curiosity. Then Dipper straightened up, wondering if Grunkle Ford had ever seen a creature like this one. Dipper had a neutral opinion about the shadow. It wasn't aggressive, but it did follow them around, which made it suspicious. Dipper decided not to mention the whole stalking, at least for now.

 

[Lady Midnight]

"You know, you're the first person to ever ask me that. Well, you're the first person to ask me something in general. The shadow moved up and down as it spoke. "I've always been able to talk and move for as long as I can remember. I mean I wasn't here, but then I was. But the skies were an odd color that day, and a weird looking triangle guy in the sky" Mabel had been enjoying listening in until the mention of a triangle. "You know Bill?!" She asked jumping near Dipper and landing on the shadow's leg. "Ow! I thought I asked you to stop that!" Mabel looked away feeling bad, but conflicted at the same time. The shadow had seen Bill, but was it working for him? What else did it know? Mabel looked at her brother wordlessly asking what they should do.


The shadow noticed Mabel and scratched his head. "What's wrong? His name is Bill? It sounds like you guys know a lot more than me." He expressed in genuine curiosity.

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper took in a deep breath and scratched the back of his head, smiling awkwardly. "Yeaaah... we've ran into Bill a few times." he responded, chuckling slowly and weirdly, looking at Mabel. "He's..." Dipper paused and looked at the Shadow "Like our... sworn enemy of sorts. I suppose you could say that..." he added afterwards, gulping. If the Shadow could affect them in any way, and he was a friend of Bill then they were in a bad situation. The Shadow didn't seem random, or weird enough to be a friend of Bill though, maybe it was some sort of byproduct of Bill's menace, in the past? For as long as he could remember... Dipper couldn't get any idea in his head.

 

[Lady Midnight]

Mabel nodded in agreement to Dipper's words crossing her arms into a 'X' shape. "Yeah. He's the worst! Plus he's really creepy," She added on and shivered. She didn't want to admit it out loud but seeing Dipper as a sock puppet was oddly funny. She sensed Dipper's uncertainty and chuckled nervously. Mabel understood his confusion, but if they kept acting like the shadow was a suspicious creature, then it would sense the uneasiness and thus Dipper would lose a page in his journal. Not to mention it'd be awesome to have a shadow as a friend. She looked down with her hand outstretched so the shadow could shake the hand of her shadow.


"Well it's nice to meet you. I'm Mabel and this is my twin brother, Dipper. So what have you been doing to entertain yourself? It must be lonely in the forest by yourself." The shadow, still acting as Dipper's shadow, grasped the hand of Mabel's shadow shaking it. "Hey Mabel! Hey Dipper!" The shadow responded happily as it pointed to itself. "My name is.... ehh... I don't know. I've never had the need for a name..." The shadow admitted as it slumped down a bit. Mabel saw that as a sign of depression and smiled. "Don't worry. We can give you a special name. Isn't that right Dipper?" She looked at her twin for support.

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper agreed with his sister's point of view. A flying triangle with one eye and a cane... sounds weird, but isn't pleasant at all. He heard his sister's introduction to the shadow, and ultimately decided that hostility and Bill Cipher were not the best ways to start a relationship, so he added "Yeah, that's... that's me! I'm... Dipper." avoiding his name as much as he could. No name? The shadow had no name, interesting. Dipper didn't want to cause any discomfort to the Shadow, but he could barely keep himself from noting down each and every single bit of information about it. It was very hard to resist, but good manners had to come first, above all else. He looked at Mabel and said "Sure. I've never really named anything, but how about..." Dipper started thinking of a name. "T-Tyrone?" Dipper said, rather curiously, in wonder if the Shadow liked the name that Dipper always wanted to have. Dipper wasn't expecting constructive criticism, but hoped that the Shadow liked it nonetheless.


(Sorry, I'm gtg right now, actually. I can't write more X_X)

 

[Lady Midnight]

Mabel's eyes narrowed as she sent a suspicious look towards Dipper. "Why is that your go to name for everything?" She muttered to the dark haired boy as the shadow made a gesture as if it was thinking about it. Obviously Dipper had always wanted the name Tyrone, but wanting to name whatever he came across Tyrone was a bit much. Regardless, she would stay quiet if the shadow liked it. I mean , the choice ultimately came down to the shadow. She stared at it a bit more as it pondered.


"They're both good names, but I don't know. Hmm...I guess I want something with a little bit more 'wow'" The shadow responded and made a jazz hands gesture. He couldn't lie. Tyrone sounded smooth and rolled off the tongue, but it missed that one factor. "How about Tyrone Shade? Does that have a nice ring to it?" Hearing the name made Mabel cringe a bit and shook her head. "Not really no."

 

[Birdsie]

Dipper looked at Mabel and moved a bit back, in response to her facial expression. "I just like that name!" he answered crossing his arms and scowling, then his expression returned to normal, as he looked at the shadow who just started talking. Dipper had to think. Does this have a nice ring to it?... Dipper put his right hand on his chin, starting to think, then realized "This sounds like the name of someone from a movie about two cops." and then paused, returning to his normal expression, as he said "Perfect! To me: This is a good name. Besides, you should not rely on others to choose your name. You should call yourself whatever you like!" soon after realizing how much hypocrisy could be found in his words, as he did not call himself, nor did anyone call him Tyrone.


Dipper's tender look turned into a smug face, in order to encourage the shadow that what he said is true. Dipper's first thought would be that looking confident would make him look like he knows what he's talking about. He looked at Mabel and asked his sister for her opinion. "He should call himself whatever he likes, right?!"