Chapter Text
Dipper couldn't help but perk up at the offer. What 12-year-old didn't want to learn magic? Besides, the less reliant he was on Delphina the better. He'd decided to trust her, but largely out of necessity.
He nodded.
"Alright." Delphina pressed the tips of her fingers against the window. When she pulled her hand back, the glass followed, swirling through the air like a liquid. She held her palm out flat in front of him and the flowing glass shaped itself into a cup. "Let's start with something simple." She snapped her fingers and the glass filled with water. "Phase changes. I want you to freeze the water."
"Uh, what? How am I supposed to do that?" Dipper chuckled nervously. He wasn't sure this qualified as teaching.
"You tell me. How do you freeze water?"
"Make it cold?"
"Okay, make it cold then."
"But I can't do that."
"You're a ghost, aren't you? Don't ghosts just do that naturally?"
"Not the ones I've seen."
"Hm, well, if the water was hot, like soup, how would you cool it?"
"Blow on it?"
"So…"
"But I can't even breathe!"
"Of course you can. Now freeze the water." Dipper looked between the cup and Delphina nervously. She couldn't be serious. His breath, if he even had any, wouldn't be cold enough to freeze anything.
He leaned forward and blew lightly into the glass. The water didn't even ripple.
"Okay, good start!" Delphina said cheerfully. Dipper squinted at her.
"It didn't do anything."
"Did you think it would do anything?"
"Not really," Dipper admitted.
"But you trusted it enough to try anyway."
"Trusted what?" Delphina shrugged.
"You tell me."
"You, I guess. I figured you wouldn't ask me to do it if it wouldn't work."
"Do you still think it will work?"
"I believe that you can make it work. Can you?" Rather than replying, Delphina raised the glass to her lips and blew into it. The water froze, not instantly, but slowly enough that Dipper could see it happen, like a trick he'd seen with a beer bottle once. Condensation formed on the outside of the glass and turned to crystal. It was a beautiful sight.
Delphina clenched and unclenched her fingers around the glass and the water unceremoniously returned to a liquid.
"Now, rule number 1: reality is what you make it. Logically, out here, there is no sun and no atmosphere. Everything should be 0k, right?"
"I guess? But things do move around and it must take energy to open portals. Energy creates heat, right?"
"That was a gross butchering of Newton's Second Law. But sure, close enough. It doesn’t matter though because even if portals were venting rocket engine levels of heat, it wouldn't maintain a temperature that could keep humans comfortable, especially without an atmosphere to keep it from dissipating. So, why am I not a popsicle?"
She lost him. He could vaguely remember hearing about Newton's Second Law before and the news constantly talked about the atmosphere trapping heat, but…
"I don't know."
"Hey, guess what, that's completely normal. We all make basic assumptions about the world around us. You don't wake up in the morning and wonder if you're going to have enough oxygen to breathe that day. That would be useless because you're unlikely to encounter a situation where a lack of oxygen would be a problem. Unless you're swimming I suppose, but that's not important. The same goes for temperature. If it's comfortable, you don't question it." She gave Dipper a minute to soak all that in. The ideas weren't totally alien. He'd taken a great number of things for granted until Gravity Falls made him question certain assumptions.
"Okay, so what temperature is it?"
"It isn't. Or rather, it's whatever you think it is. You or, in this case, I assume that the temperature will be a perfect, unnoticeable 295k." She noticed Dipper's look of confusion and then blushed slightly. "Sorry, am I being too technical?"
"A little."
"Right, well the temperature is what you think it should be. Here anyway." Delphina looked like she desperately wanted to explain things more in-depth but was holding back. Under different circumstances, Dipper would have liked to hear it—he hated when people dumbed things down for him—but he'd already had a long day and he was eager to get to the practical applications.
"So, I can change the temperature by believing that it should be different?"
"Yes, that's one way to go about it. You could also simply believe that you have the power to change the temperature."
"How are those two different?"
"Nevermind. My point is, stop telling yourself that it won't work because of x, y, or z science reason. Start telling yourself that reality is what you make it."
"I don't think that's how things work."
"Sure it is, even on Earth. Ever hear of the placebo effect?"
"I think so?"
"Okay, rule number 2: ignore me when I ramble about theoretical physics." She pressed her fingers to her temples. "Ok, the Nightmare Realm works differently. There are all sorts of things that you can do here that wouldn't work elsewhere. You've seen that." Dipper nodded, though part of him wondered where Delphina had learned all the stuff she was "rambling about." "Okay, so the ability to use magic has a much lower threshold here. I honestly don't know anything about magic on Earth. There could very well be a spell out there that could freeze water but I don't know it." The talk of magic seemed like a pretty sudden shift from her previous explanations. It felt like he was missing some connective tissue. Still, it made sense. If he'd been dropped into some fantasy world, he'd expect magic to come a little easier.
"Well, I have done a couple of spells."
"Great! Tell me what that was like."
"Oh, well, I don't know. They were in Latin or something and I just read the words and stuff happened." Delphina blinked at him.
"It was that easy?"
"I guess."
"What kind of spells?"
"Uh, well, I mentioned that I went into my Grunkle's mind."
"Yes, it was weird and creepy." Dipper decided to ignore that. It wasn't like he'd wanted to invade Stan's privacy that way.
"Yeah, so that had a ritual with candles and stuff, and then we put our hands on his head and I said the words. And then about a week or so later I raised an army of zombies that maybe, possibly, accidentally killed a couple of government agents. That one didn't have a ritual, just… words," Dipper faltered as Delphina just stared at him. "I didn't mean to! It was just, they were calling the Journal tourist junk and treating me like a little kid and I wanted to prove them wrong. I just- could've picked a better spell." He glanced back over to Delphina, doubting that his explanation had helped. She looked thoughtful. For a moment, he thought she was going to ask another question but she seemed to think better of it.
"Right, well, after that, freezing a little water should be simple. Make up a spell."
"What? I can't just-"
"Sure you can. You said the spells you've seen are in Latin, so…" She leaned over the glass and whispered, "Glaciā" Once again, the water froze over. "There you go, and Liqueface." The ice melted. "Spells."
"You know Latin?" Dipper reminded himself to add that to her entry.
"Sure, a little. Try it." She practically shoved the glass into his hands. "Remember, magic is super easy here. Shouldn't be a problem for you." Dipper stared down at the water and tried to push away the questions crowding his head. It was just a little spell, real simple: just say the word and freeze the water.
"Gla-sia," he tried.
The glass exploded, showering the two with bits of broken glass as a chunk of ice shattered on the floor.
Dipper shouted in shock and frantically brushed off the broken glass.
"Oops, guess I forgot about the ice expanding," Delphina explained apologetically. She held out her hand and the glass and ice pulled themselves back together and returned to her grasp. "Next time, try to focus on freezing it a little more gradually, that way the ice can displace the water as it grows. Try melting it now." She handed the glass back to Dipper and he took it, reluctantly. "Hey, don't be scared of it. I promise I'll stop anything dangerous from happening.” Dipper looked around doubtfully before realizing that nothing had been harmed by the flying glass. Reassured, he closed his eyes and exhaled. “Remember, 'Liquefacio.'"
Dipper opened his eyes and focused on the cup.
"Li-que-fas-eh."
This time, the shattering glass was followed by a splash. Dipper went red.
"Wh- wh- why'd it break this time?"
"Because you convinced yourself that it was going to break. That, or you were squeezing the glass too hard." She made a quick counterclockwise circle with her finger and the water and glass seemed to move in reverse until Dipper was again holding an unbroken cup of ice. "Try again. Really focus on just melting the ice. The end result should be a glass of water; remember that."
It took a few more tries, but it wasn’t long before Dipper was able to freeze and unfreeze the water without mishap.
"Alright," Delphina said, stretching. "That's a good start. You're a pretty quick learner. Pulling water out of the air's a little more complicated but really useful. Unfortunately, learning to do it tends to result in accidental rainstorms and we don't need to attract any attention."
"Is there even weather out here?"
"Sure, a lot actually, but unlike on Earth where most weather is just hot and cold air interacting, out here we have to worry about chemical reactions from roaming liquids and gases running into each other. That's a big part of why most of us hide out in the asteroid field. When rocks bump into each other, it just changes their direction." Dipper nodded with wide eyes. As scary as that sounded, he couldn't help but be curious about how different substances would react.
"So, what now?"
"You're going to rest. Sleeping's off the table, obviously, but you're probably still susceptible to mental and emotional exhaustion. Your brain needs time to sort through all the information you're taking in. I'm a little surprised you haven't collapsed already." Dipper was a little surprised too now that Delphina brought it up. He was already exhausted when he’d made the deal and that felt like forever ago. Then again, he was still firmly in his "sleep as little as possible" mode. He wasn't sure he could stop.
"Uh, I'm not great at letting myself rest," which sounded really stupid when he said it aloud.
“Afraid?”
“What? No! I mean, I guess, but that’s not why. I just have insomnia or something,” Dipper grumbled.
“I need a little more detail than that if I’m going to help,” Delphina said patiently.
“You’ve already helped enough,” Dipper sighed, mostly to himself, before explaining “I just, I don’t know, can’t stop thinking.”
“Right, well, short-term, at least, I think we can fix that.” She picked up her discarded scanner and book and pushed them at Dipper. “Simple, repetitive task. Scanner’s real easy to use, basically a fancy camera. You just point it at the page so that it appears in the viewer, then hold the trigger until it buzzes. Point, scan, turn the page, repeat. Focus on the actions and try not to obsess over anything.” Dipper wasn’t sure that would help but he was willing to try.
“Taking advantage of a poor, defenseless kid to do your secretary work; I see how it is. Can’t say I’m not used to it,” he joked half-heartedly. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, well, now I have to get some real work done.” Delphina’s tone was light but there was a tiredness to it. After giving him an appraising look, she reached into the fabric box and pulled out a thick blanket he was certain wasn’t there before. “Here, this might help.” The weight surprised Dipper. Wrapped around his shoulders, it felt warm and comforting. He didn’t feel sleepy, exactly, but they were feelings he associated with sleep.
“What kind of work?” he asked half-heartedly.
“I need to write some letters. And make some plans. Things are changing. I need to warn the others.”
“Oh, is it my fault?” Dipper’s shoulders slumped and tried focusing on figuring out the scanner’s field-of-view.
“No, you’re just a part of something bigger. We can talk about it later. Rest. ” Dipper let it go and settled into a more comfortable position: leaning against the corner of the bench and wall with his legs propped up on the seat. It was familiar, almost nostalgic, like that cold morning not long ago, when he’d climbed onto the warm bus that would take him to the boring, little town that changed everything.
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