Bad End Friends

The Beast of the Woods

A young man peacefully wandered around the dark woods, uncaring of the thick fog that clung to it like a leech. He hummed a tuneless tune with a lantern loosely swaying from his hand. He walked ever deeper and the shadows grew ever darker, with bright glowing eyes watching closely.

Finally, the man reached some sort of clearing with a dilapidated building, the Old Grist Mill as he liked to call it. He gazed at it with bittersweet fondness as he remembered his half-brother Greg, the gruff old man, an annoying blue bird and the person he used to be.

Those were simple days, he reminisced. Back then he was still him; still alive and colorful, painted in emotions of different shades, human in every aspect but now he has been drained, decayed and rotten like a blossoming rose that grew too close to the weeds.

He has been wandering these lonely woods for so long it's hard to remember a time where he was anything but a lonely lantern-bearer, as dark and empty as his domain. Where the Beast hides and fills his head with whispers of evil, like poisonous snakes slithering, binding and constricting. Until he can't hear anything but their desires.

So he clings, clings to the last strands of happy memories. Clings to the warmth of his brother's innocence, the safety of Beatrice's snark, the peace a frog's song brings and the joy of exploring the Unknown. He clings because if he doesn't he fears he might lose them, their faces and their voices. The color that they bring, the spark of emotion that isn't apathy.

But...

He has lost, somewhere some time ago the last of his spark has faded and these memories he clings so hard to, has lost its warmth.

He smiled sardonically, he has lost to the Beast without noticing but not all is in vain.

In his reminiscing his shadow grew darker and longer than it should until it formed an outline of a man with antlers, the watcher from before.

The Beast enclosed the man in complete darkness save for the light of the lantern he was carrying.

Somewhere lost in the clouded annals of history,
Lies a place that few have seen.
A mysterious place, called The Unknown.
Where long-forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood.

"Give in to the wood..." He coaxed. "Give in to ME!"

Come wayward Souls,
Who wander through the darkness,
There is a light for the lost and the meek.
Sorrow and fear,
Are easily forgotten,
When you submit to the soil of the earth.

The young man smiled. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

The dark receded and the Beast shuddered in confusion. The young man stood motionless at the center, head bowed and eyes hidden shadow. He was somehow growing tree like antlers at the sides of his head and the woods around them was plunged onto horrible darkness.

The Beast shivered and felt fear once more. The woods were his domain, why was it shifting out of his control?

—Then the young man lifted his head and opened his eyes, the previous dark iris turned into colorful concentric circles or red, yellow and blue. The Beast's exact colors.

"Goodbye, Beast."

And the darkness lunged.

In the Beast's final thoughts he belatedly realized. The young man wasn't the one who was steadily weakening—it was Him.

How could this be? He wondered, that he has grown strong but I am weak? What does he have that I lack?

Grow, tiny seed,
you are gone to the tree.
Rise, till your leaves fill the sky,
until your sighs fill the air in the night.
Lift your mighty limbs,
and give praise
to the fire.

Bit there were no answers for Him and the Beast was vanquished and the woods resumed peace once more, with the new lantern-bearer in its place.

Led through the mist,
By the milk-light of moon,
All that was lost, is revealed.
Our long bygone burdens, mere echoes of the spring,
But where have we come, and where shall we end?
If dreams can't come true, then why not pretend?
Oh how the gentle wind,
Beckons through the leaves,
As autumn colors fall.

Dancing in a swirl,
Of golden memories,
The loveliest lies of all,
The loveliest, lies of all

{RS here and this is a tribute to Over the Garden Wall, the young man was Wirt and the rest of the AN below is just a brief explanation for this story, feel free to skip it if you like.

This is basically what my headcannon is; Greg lives but Wirt has to stay in the Unknown because his mortal body is dead but there were unintended consequences for temporarily vanquishing the Beast that left Wirt to be the proxy guardian of the Unknown for the lost souls that come and go. Unfortunately, because of this, Wirt was left behind by his friends as they, one by one, moved on into a higher plane.

Loneliness is a strong driving factor for insanity, especially because measuring time in the Unknown is a bit vague so it is the main cause for Wirt to become hollow and cold, reminiscent of the Beast after a while.