Chapter Text
Sam had a feeling something would go wrong at the field trip today. Things always went wrong, especially when it was just the three of them.
What she didn't expect was how they went wrong.
It was still ghost related.
Technically.
Vlad had apparently decided museums were an okay place to steal from now.
He floated in his ghost form above them holding an artifact that was the main focus of the exhibit.
It was an old animal horn that had been carved with lots of intricate details that she couldn’t quite make out at this distance.
She just hoped it had been sourced ethically.
"And with this, I'll have it all!" He boasted as he held the horn above his head.
"Are we supposed to know what he’s talking about?" Tucker asked.
"Don't care!” Danny replied, getting into a more offensive posture, “I think as long as we get it away from him, we win."
Sam did a quick look around the room to make sure they were alone, and luckily they were. "Coast is clear Danny."
He nodded but before he could go ghost Vlad activated the horn.
"Do your job and make me king!" He shouted.
Then he disappeared.
The horn fell and Danny dove forward. The trio let out a collective breath as he caught it.
Danny stood up and examined the horn.
"So now what? Do we just put it back?" Tucker asked.
"Shouldn't we figure out where Vlad went first?" Danny asked.
"I don't know man. He's gone and the horn is still here. I think we're done."
She didn't want to agree with Tucker, but she couldn't think of what else they would need the horn for.
"Do you really want to be caught holding it?" Sam said instead.
"No.” He turned the horn over in his hands as he spoke, “But something feels off. I just want to make sure he’s not getting into trouble."
Before anyone could respond, Danny disappeared too.
The horn clattered to the floor and thankfully didn’t break.
Sam and Tucker shared a look.
Tucker pulled out his phone, typed something in, and then Sam’s phone went off.
She raised her eyebrow in question as she looked to see what he had sent her.
He had activated the GPS on his phone so she could track him.
“What are you doing?” Sam had a sinking feeling Tucker was about to do something really stupid.
He snatched the horn off the floor, “I’m going to bring Danny home.”
Then he disappeared as well.
The horn was once again on the floor.
Sam sighed, “I hate being right sometimes.”
Her phone beeped again and Tucker’s location coordinates changed to something completely different. It seemed that despite the magical disappearance, the GPS did in fact work.
“I really wasn’t expecting that to work,” she said to herself.
She looked at the horn on the floor.
She looked at her phone.
She was starting to form a plan.
It was a terrible plan.
She sent a quick text to Jazz explaining the situation and added the coordinates from Tucker’s phone.
She slipped her phone into her pocket and picked up the horn.
“Somebody’s got to take care of those idiots.”
She blinked and found herself in a cottage.
“What?”
She looked around and was both thankful and annoyed that she was alone. No one was there to jump her, but her friends weren’t around either.
The cottage was a cozy little one-room home. It was a nice little house and it looked like somebody lived there, but she didn’t see anything that said who.
No photos. No mail. Nothing.
The odd part was that she didn’t feel like she was intruding. It didn’t feel like someone else's house.
That’s when she noticed her clothes were different.
Her normal goth attire had been replaced but what could best be described as cottage core.
She frowned at the flowery dress, “You’re lucky you aren’t pink.”
She stepped outside the cottage and looked around. There was a small garden to the left of the house that looked well-taken care of.
Part of her felt proud of that.
The other part of her was unsettled by that feeling. She shouldn't be feeling such an attachment to a place she’d never been to. To a place that isn’t hers.
No matter how much it feels like it is.
She took a breath to refocus but found it didn’t fill her lungs quite the same as she was expecting.
She took another breath and realized the air felt like it did when her parents took her skiing.
“Oh, I’m on a mountain. Okay.”
At least she had a slightly better idea of where she was. She pulled out her phone to check if the coordinates were the same as Tucker’s.
Similar but not quite the same.
“Good. he’s nearby at least.”
She tried to send Jazz an update only to realize she didn’t have service.
“Of course I’m on mount no-reception,” she said with an eye roll and slipped the phone into the apron pocket of her new dress.
She lifted up the skirt slightly to do a quick check of her footwear. Luckily she still had boots on. Not her boots but hiking boots.
Which was much more practical.
Since the sun was directly above her she wasn’t 100 percent certain which direction was north, so she decided to go to the right of the cottage to begin her search.
There was a small hill but once she was on top she found a nice-looking open area with some sheep grazing.
“Tucker!” she called out, “Danny!”
She really hoped they were okay.
She walked towards the sheep and called out again.
A dog barked in response.
Sam hesitated but called out again.
A black dog crested the next hill and came running towards her.
She braced herself as best she could but it was coming up fast.
It didn’t attack.
It just ran around her barking instead.
“Whoa there, calm down,” she said to the dog and it kind of worked.
The dog stopped running and came to sit right in front of her, panting hard.
It had a beautiful dark coat of long black fur, its ears pointed straight up. It sort of reminded her of those old paintings of Anubis, but shaggier.
It was wearing a red collar.
She held her hand out and the dog eagerly sniffed her hand before giving it a lick.
“Thanks.” she deadpanned as she wiped off her slobber-covered hand on her apron.
She bent down and carefully reached for the collar hoping to find some tags.
The dog stayed still, not at all minding what she was doing.
“There we are,” she said as she felt the metal tags she was looking for. She shifted them around so she could look and found a name.
Tucker.
“You’re a dog?!”
He whined and placed a paw on his nose in embarrassment.
“Wait, how is the GPS working if you’re a dog?”
Tucker cocked his head to the side.
But then it hit her.
“Oh! You’re chipped!”
He howled and she wasn’t sure if that was a good howl or not.
“Okay okay, so if I got ‘little house on the prairie’d’, you’re a dog, what the heck happened to Danny?”
Tucker perked up at Danny’s name and barked.
“Do you know where he is?”
He barked again and wagged his tail.
“Okay, then go get him!”
Tucker barked, ran in circles a couple of times, and then ran back the way he had come.
She rolled her eyes but followed along as quickly as she could on the uneven terrain.
They ran past the sheep and up a bit of a slope past even more sheep. They crested another hill and there was a small black sheep near a very steep face of the mountain.
Tucker barked again and the little black sheep turned to face them.
Once it saw them it bleated and ran up to greet them.
“A sheep?”
Both Tucker and, presumably Danny, came up to her and waited.
“And you’re sure that’s Danny?” Sam asked Tucker.
Tucker made a show of sniffing the sheep and then barked at her.
“Okay, okay, fine.” she relented despite not having any real proof for herself that it was Danny. “Why are you guys animals?”
The boys turned to each other and then looked back at her.
“I don’t even know why I asked that.”
She looked up and realized more time had passed than she thought. The sun was starting to set behind the mountain. If it got much lower she was going to have a hard time finding her way.
“Hey there’s a cottage back there, why don’t we go there before it gets dark.”
Tucker barked and ran ahead a bit only to circle back when Danny didn’t follow.
“It’s fine. There’s no one else up here,” she said hoping that would reassure him. If anyone else were here they would have made themselves known by now.
Danny bleated in response.
She wasn’t sure why.
When they didn’t follow Tucker ran back and started herding them in the direction Sam had gestured to.
“Well, that works too I guess,” Sam said with a snicker before making the trek back to the cottage.
The trio made it back just as the last of the sunlight disappeared behind the mountain.
It didn’t take long to realize there was no electricity in the cottage, but thankfully there were candles, a fireplace, and a full book of matches.
Once the cottage was lit to her liking she figured she should probably eat something.
And get something for Tucker.
Despite how odd this day had become, the stress of it all had melted away.
She had no idea how they would get home, or how to make the boys human again, but they were together. Things never seemed quite as bad when they were together.