Chapter Text
The situation made Wirt momentarily recall an incident he had when he was eight.
He, his mother, and father (his real father) had been visiting his grandparents' cottage at the seaside, and Wirt had gone for a swim by himself. He kept diving deeper and deeper into the surf to see how long he could last underwater, a part of him pretending to be the sea monster from an old black & white horror film he had watched with his grandfather the night before. If he shared anything emotionally genetic with Greg, it was probably their sense of childhood imagination.
At some point, he'd tangled his leg in a kelp bed, which constricted when he tried to swim back up, preventing him from reaching the surface. He had thrashed and fought like a wildcat as his lungs quickly became starved of oxygen. Just as he was beginning to get tunnel vision, the rope of kelp around his leg finally uprooted against his struggle, and he was able to get himself to shore, where he lay gasping for breath for the next 20 minutes. He never told his family what had happened for fear of them never letting him swim alone again.
He knew for a fact that drowning wasn't supposed to feel as peaceful as it currently did.
*
"I'm not just going to wander around in the woods for the rest of my life!"
"I'm TRYING to help you!" The Beast growled, an unnatural tremor growing in his (its?) voice.
Wirt remained steadfast, gripping the lantern tighter as a chilling realization slowly dawned on him. "You're not trying to help me, you just have some weird obsession with keeping this lantern lit. It's almost like... YOUR-"
The wind was suddenly forced from his lungs as the Beast attacked him, knocking him to the ground. He heard Beatrice cry out something, but didn't understand. The lantern was quickly snatched from his grasp before he could even struggle to pull back.
"Wait!"
Within the two seconds it took Wirt to scramble back up, the Beast had already vanished. So had the lantern. Without the lantern, darkness overtook anything a few feet away from him.
"Over here! We're over here, Wirt!" He heard Beatrice shout through the darkness. He hastily made his way towards the sound of her voice, nearly tripping over a root in the process. He found Beatrice making a fruitless effort to cull the growth of the vines that surrounded Greg with her beak.
No....
The edelwood sapling had hastened its growth, slowly entrapping more of Greg with every passing moment. Wirt immediately began pulling at the branches, kicking the base; things that he should have been able to snap off having the strength of steel pipes. In a panic, he searched the darkness around him. The woodsman had an axe, didn't he? He could use it to cut Greg out.
He couldn't even hear the woodsman's pained groaning anymore, much less see him or his axe. How far away had he fallen? In the time it would take Wirt to blindly locate the axe, would it be too late for Greg? His head snapped back to his brother, the edelwood overtaking his body with every second. A fresh round of anxiety-induced tears blurred the vision of his dying brother. Nononono please no...
There was no time to think.
"I'LL DO IT!!!" He screamed into the darkness.
The growth of Greg's edelwood ceased.
Several seconds of complete silence followed. Then, anything remaining in Wirt's already-limited vision bled away, leaving him standing in a black void.
And then, the void was filled with a booming voice.
"YOU'LL DO WHAT?"
Wirt shuddered, wiping his face on his sleeve and staring into the abyss with reddened eyes in a last-ditch effort to look at least somewhat collected. "L-look..." He began, "You and I both know what's really in that lantern. You need the oil from these... 'trees'... to fuel it."
He took a big gulp.
"I'll help you. I'll cut down your trees. I'll grind them into oil for you and fuel your lantern with it. You won't need to lie to me about what the trees are or what's in the lantern... Just please... Let me take my brother back home."
Another pause.
Then, without warning, Wirt's vision came flooding back. The Beast stood in front of him, lantern in hand. Beatrice, her little bird eyes widened in horror, sat completely still on the edelwood sapling encircling Greg. The woodsman was several feet away, his weary eyes darting between Wirt and the Beast.
"You may bring your brother back home, safe and alive." Said the Beast in a solemn tone, "But you will not go back with him. Your life for your brother's."
Wirt swallowed thickly.
"Deal."
"NO!" Shouted the woodsman, struggling weakly in the snow. The Beast slunk back into the darkness, giving a short nod in Greg's direction before disappearing completely again.
Wirt immediately rushed to Greg's side. The branches that had previously been strong and full of life were now dead and brittle, crumbling under his touch. Greg gave out a loud gasp upon being released, but remained unconscious, even as his brother pulled him into a tight hug and dampened his shoulder with his tears. Beatrice struggled to find something to say, but all she could manage was "Wirt..."
Hoisting the exhausted, but still very much alive boy onto his back, and gathering frog Jason Funderberker in his free arm, Wirt looked back at Beatrice. "Come with us."
"I..." Beatrice looked down. "I gotta go home too. Admit to my family it's my fault they're bluebirds."
Knowing that was his proverbial cue, Wirt reached into his pocket and produced Adelaide's scissors. "Ahem."
Beatrice fluttered up in surprise. "WHAT?!"
"The scissors. That'll make your family human again."
"YOU HAD THEM ALL ALONG??" Beatrice asked, still in disbelief.
Wirt shrugged his shoulders. "I... used them to escape Adelaide, and... and then, yeah... I was sorta mad at you."
Beatrice couldn't hold back her own tears any longer. "Oh, you..." She landed on Wirt's shoulder and embraced his face with her wings. "...You wonderful mistake of nature." Wirt brought a hand up to hug her back, then motioned for her to take the scissors he still held. Beatrice nodded, dried her eyes on her wing, and grabbed the scissors with her little bird feet before taking off into the darkness. She looked back only once.
In the other direction, the trees leaned to their side, revealing a path that had not been there before. There was a small light in the distance of the path. Wirt sighed. The way home.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" The woodsman shouted from his position on the ground, "Don't you realize what this has cost you??"
Another sigh, this one with a slight tremor. He was too tired to cry again. "I know what it's saved."
He began his trek onto the path, noticing after a minute or two that the light at the end soon began to swallow them up.
He took a deep breath...
Grabbed Greg and Jason...
And swam upward.
*
It was only a moment later, a meter below the shore that his leg snagged on something. He threw Greg and his frog towards the surface, and heard the muffled sound of a cough coming from his brother shortly thereafter. Another set of hands appeared and lifted him out. Greg was safe. He was home. Wirt managed to give a small smile at his accomplishment before the snag on his leg began to drag him back under.
It reminded him of the kelp incident, but from a stronger, more purposeful force. He attempted to swim upwards again, in the sliver of hope that it wasn't too late to save himself, but he was only dragged further downward. The sensation his oxygen-deprived lungs brought him was familiar, along with the ensuing tunnel vision. However, the two glowing lights at the end of the tunnel were new.
Then darkness again.
Then falling.
And then he felt something... someone... catch him.
He knew for a fact that drowning wasn't supposed to feel as peaceful as it currently did.
He let out the breath he'd been holding.
"Goodbye, Greg."
"Goodbye, Wirt."