@dipsterpinetree

Kiki did not belong on the uni quad. She stood there in the middle of the grass with her black flats and her socks rolled down once, clutching the straps of her backpack with both hands curled like it was her very first day of school. Her eyes darted left and right as students walked the path or settled on benches. Every now and then, someone looked up at her. She stared at her shoes and socks then. Her heart pattered almost painfully, and she thought about rain on a windowsill, and if she could collect ingredients from herself, she could collect those palpitations and watch them wing around in her jar, like frantic little butterflies. 

Despite all this, she was excited to be here. Not because of the maps stuffed in her backpack and the moonstone on her neck. Not because she was even going to see Dipper– though that had something to do with it, the thought making her smile. 

But because she wanted to be here here. On a college campus, like in the movies she’d never really been allowed to see until leaving Ingary. 

Kiki looked up then and her expression brightened more as she saw Dipper approaching from the path. She lifted her hand from her backpack and waved at him.

“Um– h–hey,” she greeted. Her heart started to beat even quicker, making her feel a little breathless. She had no idea why so she just tried to ignore it. “I, erm, got here a little early.” 

So it hadn’t taken him long to get ready. Really all he had to do was change into a pair of jeans and a shirt that he hadn’t been wearing for three days. He was a simple guy after all. ut afterwards he had booked it down to the quad, ready to meet Kiki.

And to his surprise Kiki was there waiting. Early, just as he was. When she waved he jogged over to her, hitching his backpack higher onto his shoulder. “Hey! We’re both early. Maybe cu we’re both excited? I’m excited. Are you excited?”

He did have a lot of other tricks, and they were all Dash had only recently learned about. Back home he was never allowed to use his magic. It was forbidden and something his mom constantly rode down on him. Their family was to act “normal.”

Here, however, he could act like himself, how it should be!

Because of that he found out he actually had freaking awesome quick reflexes. He hadn’t known about that before. He knew of his metabolism and about the way his mind tended to work in a more than normal accelerated rate, but never about the instant reflexive ability he had. “Yeah man! I mean I’m only learning about them recently, and still don’t know how fast I can really go, kinda gave myself a scar the last time I tried to figure that out, but it’s all been cool.” 

The blonde shrugged, shaking his head in the process. “Nice to meet you too and nah don’t mention it. I’m just glad I got to help.”

Super speed. It was still managing to blow Dipper’s mind. Which it really shouldn’t. Not when he spent so much time in Gravity Falls, a beacon of Magickal beings, and considering he had moved here of all places, another safe haven for those possessing magick. But super speed wasn’t something he’d encountered before. Not really. Though there had been that one kid back home who was always going a mile a minute. Dipper had just thought he was weird and had like extreme ADHD.

Anyways, back to the kid in front of him. Miter Hero of the Day.

“Okay so what I’m getting is, is that you’re super fast and you have no idea how fast you really are.” Dipper was talking mainly to himself, trying to put all this information together in his mind. “A scar? Damn. What were you doing? Or I guess the better question is how?”

Yes, Belle was thinking of potential adventure.

In this town, especially the way things had been going, adventure seemed right around the corner. She didn’t know how so much had changed in such a small period of time. But, it was like, ever since she’d met Adam, her whole world had been blown wide open. It was like she’d gone her whole life with her nose in a book before now. 

Wasn’t really living, that. This, though? It was living, and living life to the fullest, if you asked her.

Which is why she happily flitted down the aisle she was looking for, her brow furrowed slightly.

“Which languages?” she asked curiously as she bent over slightly to peer at a few spines of books. “That may help us narrow our search.” 

As he talked, she went along, pulling a few books off the shelves–French dictionaries and Spanish and German. Then she turned to the other side of the aisle, and began plucking a few others: Latin, Ancient Greek, Sandscript. 

Of course, Belle couldn’t read most of these (except for a little Latin and French, and perhaps a smidge of Ancient Greek, which she’d picked up while studying the Gates.)  

By the end of her little search, taking as many of the languages Dipper had mentioned too, she had a stack on the ground rising up almost to her waist. 

Smiling at Dipper, she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

“I’ll take one half and you take the other? We’ll go sit down at a table.” She grabbed up her stack of books and began to lead the way, her steps giddy and light, despite the weight she was carrying. (She was quite used to it.)

Dipper rattled off a list of languages, watching as Belle nimbly picked books off the shelf. she had grabbed Latin (on his list), Spanish (also on the list), and a couple of others that certainly weren’t on his list. But any help was good help considering he’d gotten stuck so many time trying to figure it out on his own. Belle seemed to be good at this sort of thing. Or at least that was the vibe he was getting from the way she easily seemed to pull books from the shelves that she thought would be helpful.

An eyebrow raised as she picked up half of the, frankly, large stack of books with ease and nearly skipped off. She was so tiny. And yet. And yet she continued to be a puzzle to him and wasn’t that dangerous? He was already a bit smitten with her just because of her seemingly never ending knowledge of so much. Add that on to the fact she was so eager and willing to help and Dipper would be in full out #love with the older woman.

Picking up his stack of books, he followed Belle once more before settling down at the table as well. “I gotta ask because that was pretty amazing but what in the world? How did you carry all that without even breaking a sweat? Because I kinda want to die a little after carrying my stack.” He chuckled a bit breathlessly as he looked over at Belle.