Chapter Text
High in the Hinterland Mountains, the air is crisp and warm all at once, the sun shining and making snow on its peaks glitter like a child’s craft project. And if you asked Hickory or Dickory, it’s a beautiful place full of wonder and life and old culture rooted deep within the landscape itself.
If you asked John Dory, though, he’d agree with the “beautiful” part while also complaining about the cold nipping at his fingers in the same breath.
Spring has technically arrived, though the mountains seem deeply committed to ignoring that fact. Snow blankets everything in soft white layers, piled along the slopes, tucked into the crooks of branches, and packed thick over the narrow paths winding between the trees. It clings stubbornly to every rock and root like winter left in a huff and forgot half its luggage behind. The sunlight does its best, warm and golden as it filters through the forest, but all it manages is making the snow sparkle obnoxiously bright.
The trees here are ancient things, towering pines and thick-barked giants with branches so wide they could hold entire families of very determined squirrels. Their trunks rise like pillars into the clear mountain sky, dark green needles dusted in white and shifting gently whenever the wind moves through them. Beneath them, the ground is anything but still. Tiny critters dart between exposed roots and buried stones, whiskers twitching, paws pattering, little bodies vanishing into tunnels beneath the snow. Bright lichens cling to bark. Hardy spring moss peeks through in stubborn green patches. Small flowers, confused but brave, push up near the warmest roots like they have no intention of letting the weather boss them around.
At the edge of one snowy rise, where the forest thins just enough to give the mountains room to breathe, the old pine cabin sits nestled inside the trunk of a tree far too large to be considered reasonable. Its roots curl around the porch like protective arms, thick and knotted beneath fresh powder. The round front door is painted a cheerful red that stands out sharply against the dark bark and white snow, bright enough to be seen through the trees by anyone who already knows where to look.
A small porch wraps around the base of the trunk, its railing half-buried in snow and decorated with evidence of family life: tiny hoofprints, scattered pine needles, a forgotten pink mitten, and Rosie’s glitter-covered sign hammered proudly beside the door. The letters are crooked, the paint is bright, and the message is impossible to miss:
WELCOME
Unless You Are Mean!
Above it, gold protection bells hang from carved wooden charms beneath the porch roof. They sway in the breeze, chiming softly against one another with a sound light as laughter and old as the mountain itself. For one peaceful second, the cabin looks warm and still, a cozy little shelter tucked into the snow with smoke curling from its chimney and spring sunlight glittering across its branches.
Then something crashes inside hard enough to rattle the red door. And this is where our story begins.
Buckle up folks, because this is going be a bumpy, chaotic, trauma-and-love fueled ride.