Grins Pov
The Deathling Follows
The welcome mat still said:
Please Remove Curses Before Entering.
I stared at it like it might blink.
The soft glow of the Grotto spilled out behind me. Laughter. Teacups. Someone humming off-key. The air smelled like old parchment, lavender, and grief that had dried properly.
I didn't mean to come back.
But something had pulled me.
Not duty. Not habit.
Something else.
Hope, maybe.
Bartholomew waved at me from the center of the chaos—yarn draped over his tusk like an accident he was too polite to notice. He was explaining ghost stitch tension to a banshee with vocal fry. Vlad, still dramatic, was grooming a corpse flower like it had feelings.
They didn't look at me like a mistake.
Didn't treat me like a weapon.
They just… let me be here.
I cleared my throat—dry, of course. Like scraping a spoon against tombstone.
"Alright, weirdos. I'm heading out for a bit."
Pip spun midair, leaving glitter on someone's head. "Are you dying again?"
"No."
I hesitated.
"...Going into the forest. To help some... friends."
The banshee gave me the kind of sigh you reserve for love stories that end in blood.
Vlad looked like I'd personally betrayed his eyeliner. "Without inviting me?"
"Next time," I said. Quiet. Honest.
Bartholomew waddled up and pressed something into my palm.
A little knit pouch. Smelled like lavender and old spells. Inside: three rune stones. A skull charm with stupid heart eyes.
I stared at it.
He smiled. "Protection charm. And maybe a reminder. That you belong."
My fingers closed around it before I could think.
Didn't say thank you. Just nodded. Tucked it inside my cloak.
Turned toward the forest.
The Grotto's light lingered on my back like the last breath before sleep. Safe. Small.
But what waited in front of me was louder. Wilder.
Them.
I adjusted my cloak.
"Don't wait up," I muttered.
Then I stepped into the trees.
Pecola's pov
The golden haze of the Wildlife Realm was starting to fade. The riot of saturated flora, the humming warmth—it all felt quieter now, more fragile, like a memory hanging by a thread. I stood at the edge of Antic's dorm grove, watching twilight stain the treetops violet.
Behind me, Dolly muttered curses into that damned shard of cursed glass she still clung to. Something about a cursed hair strand that wouldn't behave. I didn't look; I listened instead.
Then I heard it: a faint rustle, the sharp whisper of moss under foot. I turned just as Grin stepped into the clearing—like a shadow settling back to life. His cloak trailed behind him with a silent arrogance, and his scythe glinted against the dying light, but it wasn't the weaponry that drew me in—it was how unburdened he looked. Not softened—Grin never softened—but unweighted, like something painful had finally slipped from his shoulders.
Antic noticed him too, mouth full of berry. "I take it you didn't get swallowed by a death bog?"
Grin remained still, inscrutable.
"I had... a meeting..." he said, voice slow.
Antic smirked. "With who? The Grim Knitting Circle? Did they give out name tags? Did you cry? Be honest."
Grin brushed past him, ignoring the tease. "Only… a little." The ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of his jaw. I felt it more than I saw it.
I stepped forward, toward him. The air between us almost coagulated. "You're coming with us," I said simply—because there was no question in that, just something sure and urgent and true.
He turned toward me, his gaze lingering. Deep. Weighty. Then he nodded. Hard, decisive. "They told me to find the things… that make the job worth doing. I found one."
I blinked. I didn't know whether he meant me, or something else—but it didn't matter. Not yet.
Dolly broke through, snapping her compact shut with catlike precision. "Great. The gang's here, the map's found, the hair looks decent. We should tunnel through the sadness and fix this mess. Before I crack."
Antic raised a hand theatrically. "To Evergreena we go! Cue the dramatic forest portal!"
The grove shimmered—leaves stirred, then folded the air itself sideways, like reality peeled open. The moss at our feet pulsed with light—breath on glass come alive.
Grin tensed once. Imperceptible.
Antic leaned in, low. "Don't worry. It only hurts the first time."
Grin replied, deadpan, slow: "So… you've said… repeatedly… in very public spaces."
Dolly groaned—too loud. "For the love of the forest gods, either kiss already or just step through!"
I moved forward. First. The edges of the portal brushed my skin: cool. Electric. Strange.
And in a breath, the world behind us dissolved. The Wildlife Realm slipped away like a gently closing memory.
Evening bloomed around us. Evergreena Echoes waited.
Stepping through the portal felt like walking into water—but backward. No splash. No sound. Just resistance, cool and viscous, wrapping around my limbs and thought alike.
Then, suddenly—air.
The Perennial Forest wasn't gone. It had… evolved. Changed itself around us like a dream that remembered us too well. The moss under my boots whispered again with each step, the ground somehow softer, but deeper. Hungrier.
The trees rose like ivory columns above us, their branches braided with vines that glowed faintly in colors I didn't have names for. Gold flickered in the canopy. Somewhere overhead, wings flapped—not birds. Something else.
Everything here felt... aware.
Antic's voice broke through the silence like a misplaced musical note. "Okay, this place is giving serious ex energy. Like... 'You thought you could just move on?'" His tone was playful, but even I could hear the tension behind it.
A sharp slap echoed.
Dolly, perched like a hawk in the crook of his scarf, had struck his shoulder with her tiny porcelain palm. "Focus, you hormonal tangleweed. We are walking into a wound."
I didn't laugh.
Grin trailed behind us, almost quiet enough to vanish. But I always knew when he was close. The air shifted with him—thicker, colder. His scythe whispered against his back like a second voice, always half a step behind him. But he didn't say a word. Not yet.
Then the mist ahead curled like a finger beckoning us closer.
I stopped.
So did everyone else.
A clearing opened in front of us. It was wrong.
Not frightening—sacred.
The light in the center didn't come from the sky, but from her. The figure standing there. Her hair shimmered silver, but her skin held the weight of dusk—like she'd walked through too many sunsets and worn them into her bones.
I didn't know her. But my body did. My breath hitched without warning.
"Children," she said. One word—low, velvety, devastating. Like mourning wrapped in honey. "You've come."
Antic moved first, the sound of leaves crunching beneath his boots pulling me back to earth. He bowed—dramatically, but not mockingly. "Your Majesty," he said with a voice I hadn't heard before. Gentle. Stripped. "We came for the Breaths of Evergreena. And, possibly, cure whatever the fuck is going on with No Eyes. "
Dolly sighed. "We're here to rescue echoes of lost love and fix the mess your ancestors couldn't. You're welcome in advance."
The woman—no, Queen—smiled faintly. It didn't touch her eyes. "You are not too late," she said. "But you will need more than courage."
Her gaze landed on me.
It didn't feel heavy.
It felt known.
Something behind my ribs unspooled and I couldn't stop it.
She spoke again. "They are trapped in a story. A memory turned prison. A love that should not have ended."
Antic tilted his head. "So we dive in, rewrite a heartbreak. No pressure."
I didn't say a word. I couldn't.
Grin finally stepped beside me, his voice low, like thunder rolling over moss. "What… do we do…?"
Queen Sentient gestured toward the mist curling at the edge of a waterfall. Beneath it: a pool that shimmered like glass remembering how to cry.
"That is the gateway," she said. "To change the ending... you must live inside it."
Antic slipped his fingers into mine. He didn't ask. Just… did it.
I didn't pull away.
"I'll hold the veil," Grin murmured, already pulling out that ancient tome. "If anything follows… I'll harvest it."
I stepped forward. The portal shimmered.
Somewhere beneath my skin, something answered.
And then—like falling through a memory I didn't own—I passed through.
The moment my foot touched the pool's surface, the world folded.
Not with pain. Not with violence. But with the hush of a turning page.
My breath caught. Light unfurled around us like ribbons of memory, each strand humming a different note—grief, hope, longing. And when the magic settled, we were no longer in the forest.
We stood in a garden.
But not just any garden—this place was memory turned to marble and moonlight. The sky above shimmered with shifting opal, not quite day or night. The air pulsed with scents I couldn't name: warm clover, honeysuckle, rain over ink.
This wasn't just a place. It was a feeling.
And it remembered everything.
I reached down to touch the stone beneath my boots—opaline tiles arranged in a pattern that made my fingertips buzz. It hummed like a living nerve. My pulse matched it, beat for beat.
Antic landed beside me with a swirl of gold, his newly transfigured outfit fitting him like temptation. He looked good. Too good. His horns glinted, his half-buttoned poet's shirt dangerously effective.
"Okay," he murmured, glancing around with wide eyes. "This is... aggressively pretty."
I stared at him longer than I meant to.
He noticed.
"What?" he asked, shifting.
"You look..." I blinked. "Loud."
He grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Dolly twirled in mid-air, rainbow-threaded robes glittering. "It's supposed to be dramatic, darling. We're not just interlopers. We are players in a story begging for a better ending."
Grin appeared with a shimmer of stardust, his robe sweeping the ground, his presence somehow older than before. "...This place... hurts."
He was right.
The garden didn't hum anymore.
It sighed.
And from its center—just visible between silver vines and crystal hedges—floated two forms.
They didn't move.
They glowed. Not like fire or stars, but like… sorrow remembered too long.
The Breaths.
Elara and Orion, I assumed. Or what was left of them. Suspended in some kind of looped memory, too faint to feel real, yet too real to look away from.
Their edges pulsed with faint light.
But the music was off. Dissonant. Like they were trying to sing through broken instruments.
Antic stepped forward. "They're stuck."
"No," Dolly whispered, her voice too quiet. "They're mourning."
We stood there, all of us, quiet as graves.
Then, the wind shifted.
And the garden... changed.
The vision warped around us, pulling us in—not like observers, but actors.
The light dimmed, shaped itself into candlelit shadows on marble. Stone balconies. Blossoms curling along rails. Two figures—human now—formed in front of us like the start of a story.
A girl stood near the edge of a high ledge, gown trailing behind her like spun honey.
She whispered a name I somehow already knew:
"Orion."
And then the night opened.
The light shifted again.
Not like before.
This time, it was slower… thicker. Like syrup over skin.
I blinked—and the garden was gone.
In its place, cobblestones.
Underfoot, worn smooth by time and footfall. Around us: cottages carved from pale wood and amber stone, roofs draped in flowering moss. A slow bell tolled in the distance. Chickens darted past my boots—real chickens. One squawked.
Antic let out a high-pitched yelp and practically vaulted behind me.
"They have poultry here," he hissed. "Aggressive poultry."
I blinked. "You're scared of chickens?"
"I'm not scared. I'm… respectful. There's a difference."
Dolly hovered just off the ground, hair still shimmering, but her expression sharpened. "This is more than memory... This is functioning."
She was right.
Villagers moved around us. A woman swept a porch across the street. Children ran down the road, laughing and tossing flower petals. None of them looked like spirits. They looked alive.
We looked... unnoticed.
Grin stepped forward, his robe catching dust. He bent down and ran his fingers over the edge of a trough. "…Real water… real dust…"
I turned slowly, taking it all in.
Signs painted with curling script. Smoke from hearths. The scent of herbs drying on doorways. Someone was baking bread—my stomach growled before I even realized it could.
"This isn't illusion," I whispered.
Dolly circled a passing boy, who didn't flinch. "We're embedded."
"What?" Antic asked.
She turned, sharp. "We're inside the story, yes. But not as shadows. We've been inserted into it. See your hands? Clothes? You've changed."
He glanced down and let out a strangled noise.
"Oh sweet moonbeams—I'm wearing tights."
I looked at myself.
Gone was the moss-colored gown Dolly had chosen earlier. I now wore a peasant dress of pale lavender and soft brown, with herbs tucked in a satchel at my side. Rough boots. Dirt under my nails.
I was someone else.
Grin straightened, his expression unreadable. "…I believe... we've taken on roles."
"Like actors," Dolly said. "But with... mortality."
Antic froze. "Wait. Are you saying we can die in this thing?"
Dolly didn't answer.
Neither did Grin.
Which was an answer in itself.
I swallowed. "So if we're not just watching... we have to live it. Blend in."
Dolly gave a slow, wicked smile. "Correct. Welcome to Evergreena, darlings. Let's see who you're pretending to be."
From down the lane, a voice called out.
A man—middle-aged, broad shouldered—waved to us. "Ah! There you are! We've been waiting for you!"
I blinked.
Antic leaned in. "Uh... Do we know him?"
Grin muttered, "…We're about to find out."