#r!dipper

No worries about forgetting! I wrote it just once in a fic and it’s been a really long time. It’s Furaha. I should probably write a few more with them, if only I can come up with ideas.

How is this goat still alive?

Imamu stopped in his tracks and his thoughts alike, examining the situation.

The goat was an ugly thing, wall-eyed and scruffy, with a particularly evil smell that hung about it like a cloak. He’d never liked it, though not for any specific reason; it simply unsettled him. He had vague memories of thinking, as a child, that it was watching him, even when it had its back turned. Even when it was on the other side of the village. Even when he’d spent half a year doing his damned best to stay out of its sight.

He’d asked the gods about it once, but they’d told him not to worry.

It was just Gompers, they’d said. He’s just like that. You get used to it.

They never did give him a satisfactory explanation as to exactly what a ‘Gompers’ really was.

He’d thought he’d finally settled it, just last night. He wasn’t a child anymore. He had no reason to be afraid of a common goat. So when he picked the Gompers as the sacrifice for the Feast of the Suns, he thought that would be the end of that - a final burial of that childish notion, a chance to step forward and move on with his life.

He gave the order. His sister had protested - the strange goat was her favorite - but he was the Soul of their people, and if he allowed the implication that the gods demanded it, then...well. It was done.

He saw it done.

And now he saw the goat - the very same goat he’d killed only last night - standing outside his home, chewing a tuft of coarse grass and staring in two directions at once yet giving the impression of focused attention nonetheless.

He stood. He stared.

He took a step.

The goat didn’t move, aside from continuing to chew, and chew, and chew.

He edged past, then set a brisk pace, determined to go about his business. Determined not to look back, even as he felt the stare of the goat following him.

How is it still alive?

There was no answer, only the words of a memory, echoing with fathomless truth that he now recognized as guidance.

Mod O here! I have a few things in mind for the incarnation I once wrote (and drew) as his hypothetical first:

He’s a second-born twin to a girl with Mabel’s soul. Their parents happen to be the physical and spiritual leaders of their tribe - the Head and the Soul. Typically these leaders are a married couple, with an heir by blood or adoption who grows up to fill one role, with whoever they marry taking on the other.

Imamu (r!Dipper) and Furaha (r!Mabel) actually grow up to be the Soul and Head (respectively) of the tribe as brother and sister instead of the traditional practice of one taking a role and marrying someone to fill the other. They are supremely well balanced for the act, and are remembered for generations after as the greatest leaders the tribe has ever had - they probably even become legends, in fact.

In this particular incarnation, Furaha is actually ace and Imamu is bi. He marries outside the tribe, but I don’t know what course that takes, other than there is love there and they choose each other, and that he’s fully an adult by our reckoning by that time. I want to say early 20s? In a culture where it’s not abnormal to marry at 16-18, he’s a late bloomer in that realm, but he’s happy with the person he finds when he finds them. Furaha doesn’t marry but she’s the best auntie to her own niblings.

Imamu is, as I said in the tags on my fic, a bit of an arrogant little snot as a teenager. He’s special, and he grew up knowing it. He’s got magical powers of light and fire and bears spectral wings when he feels like it, and the gods (i.e. the ascended Flock) clearly favor if not adore him. 

Despite all he has going for him, though, he goes through some tough life lessons at some point during his late teens, and he comes back down to earth, so to speak. I’m not sure he ever achieves perfect humility, but he’s no longer convinced that the world revolves around him, and he’s a better person for it.

Digital painting of Imamu from my Transcendence AU fanfic - the first human reincarnation of Alcor post godhood.

The two brothers squabble constantly, each calling the other his “greatest enemy” - they trick each other, prank each other, try to make the other accept one-sided deals, steal each other’s things, sabotage each other’s plans, collaborate together when they discover a new mystery or code and then try to keep the answers for themself. Their sister is loved by them both, and is often torn between trying to mediate between them or just letting them get on with it because nothing stops them.