When Blind Lincoln left for the forest, he had imagined a chance to be outside, to wander, to escape the narrow confines of the Order headquarters for once. Instead, he was stuck in this cave.

Escaping one stony prison for another. Wonderful.

The only person to complain to was Bill, who was probably laughing to himself about the irony of it all. Lincoln should be out there enjoying the sun, even if it was weak and wintery, but he couldn't. Because of Stanford Pines' pesky cameras.

They were boxy, dilapidated old things, but apparently a fair number of them still worked. Lincoln had no idea where they were, had no way to avoid them. But Bill did. So to get Lincoln out here, Bill had possessed him and navigated through the forest, out of the cameras' views.

It'd been the first time in years that Lincoln had been possessed, and getting torn out of his body hadn't gotten any easier. But it was over now. Now, he had all the time in the world to stare at the ancient prophecies scrawled on the stone walls of his cave.

Luckily, no cameras could see the entrance to his cave, so Lincoln didn't have to stay entirely out of the sun. He'd brought supplies to attempt translations of the prophecies, but his mind wasn't wired for language, and he spent most of his time sitting and basking in the sun.

He didn't get much sunlight these days. Or any, really.

Currently, he sat on a rock just outside the cave, watching the sunset. He couldn't make out the whole thing through these trees, but what he could see was beautiful. Bare tree trunks spindled upward, cutting stark lines through the splayed red light of the sun. Clouds just above the sun glowed pink, but the sky on either side was a rich, deep red. Lincoln thought it must be the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen.

Not that it had much competition.

Lincoln watched, still as a statue, as the sun gradually sank behind the distant mountains, as the stars began to peek through the periwinkle sky, as the color of the sky faded from purple-blue to purple-black. He had watched the sunset every night since arriving at this cave, and he treasured every one. It meant sitting in frigid temperatures, but he didn't mind. The cold made him feel alive.

After a while, he carefully picked himself up and climbed down from the rock. With one last smile up at the stars, he ambled back into his cave.

He returned to his bedroll and sat beside it, leaning against the rock wall with a sigh. There didn't seem to be much point behind him coming out here. Bill had made some offhand comment about recreating the memory gun, but then he'd instructed Lincoln to leave the memory gun with Pacifica, and Lincoln couldn't go out and talk with the dwarves anyway, what with those cameras. When he'd found out he'd be staying in the cave of prophecies, he brought along paper and pencils and a book or two for an attempt at translation, but that was just for his own sanity. The only reason he'd been given for this expedition was to be "out of the way for a few weeks." Why that was necessary, Lincoln did not know.

But then, he'd been ordered by Bill. Lincoln couldn't exactly disobey a direct order from Bill.

Eventually, Lincoln crawled into his sleeping bag. He may as well try to sleep. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

He was in the middle of a dream when something odd — his hands, with six fingers instead of five — pulled him into lucidity. He glanced around the dream version of the Order headquarters, excitement bubbling in his heart. Lucid dreams without Bill were rare, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do in this one. Lincoln jumped into the air and flew through the ceiling out into the daylight, which was the same shade of red as tonight's sunset. He soared across the sky, into the wisps of light on the horizon. Sometimes, a person needed a good flying dream, and Lincoln took the chance to have one whenever he could.

"Having fun, Blind Eye?"

Lincoln landed on a patch of ground that floated in the sky, staring in dismay at the sun. It had morphed from a hazy circle into a well-defined triangle.

Bill was here.

"Am I clear to go back, then?" Lincoln asked as Bill floated over to him.

"No," Bill said flatly. "Though I wonder if your presence would have altered the events of tonight."

Lincoln returned Bill's flat tone with a flat stare. "Whatever happened, cut Pacifica some slack. She's new to this."

"Our cult members aren't," Bill snapped. "They had one job, and the Pines still managed to steal something."

Lincoln started. "The Pines stole something? From the Order? What?"

"The last thing they needed to set their plan in motion."

Lincoln pursed his lips in frustration. He hated when Bill gave vague answers like this, but trying to get anything more specific would be futile.

"Oh, and they destroyed the memory gun, too," Bill said.

"They what?" Lincoln said in disbelief. "So now we're down to Northwest and his amulet?"

"You relied on Lone Wolf's amulet before," Bill pointed out. "The memory gun was just for emergencies."

"Yes, but before Grace was old enough to use it — after Gaston grew out of its powers — there was over a decade when nobody had the amulet at all!"

"It is rather frustrating that the Northwests hoard that amulet," Bill said. "But the loss of the memory gun doesn't matter. Not now. Not when the only thing between me and my freedom is the Pines family."

And potentially your Symbols, Lincoln thought. But he was a Symbol, and he was helping Bill gain his freedom. He wasn't sure he'd be able to join in on fulfilling the prophecy, even if he wanted to. Which was why, as he'd gathered over the years, Bill had wanted his soul.

"Anyway, I came to warn you," Bill said. "Someday soon, there's going to be a period of time that is full of gravitational anomalies. Unless the rest of the Order manages to put a stop to this, but I doubt it. My only options are to destroy from the outside or manipulate from the inside, and neither of them seem very reliable."

"Gravitational anomalies?" Lincoln repeated. He frowned. "As in gravity changing strength or direction? What are they doing that could cause that?"

Bill watched Lincoln quietly for a moment, the look in his eye unreadable. "They're activating an interdimensional portal," he finally said.

Lincoln's sense of relief over Bill actually answering him for once was quickly overtaken by confused joy. "That's — that's great, then!" he said. "You can escape through that!"

The patch of ground upon which he stood suddenly started rumbling violently, sending Lincoln to his knees. Bill grew until he filled Lincoln's entire field of vision. "You think I haven't tried that?" he thundered. "Of course I tried that! I had the portal built for that purpose!"

Lincoln shakily got to his feet. "What. . . what happened?"

"It didn't work, obviously." Bill returned to his normal size. "I had it coded for my dimension, but when I tried to go through, it spit me back out. That's why I was so weak when we first met."

Lincoln didn't think Bill had been weak at all when they'd first met, though the demon had seemed to get stronger over the years. He thought all this over for a while, then said quietly, "And that was thirty years ago?"

Bill didn't respond at first. He just floated there in silence.

"Yes," he finally said. "Around the time you lost your memory."

Lincoln nodded. He'd thought so.

"Forgive me for asking," he said, "but I don't understand why the Pines reactivating the portal is a bad thing. Couldn't you just avoid it?"

"I could," Bill said. "Reactivating the portal won't undo my plans, but it will make things highly inconvenient. For one, if anyone found out how much it can weaken me, they could use that against me. For another, the Pines are rescuing someone who has spent thirty years in my dimension — one of my Symbols, at that. There are already nine inside town boundaries, and I don't want ten. Plus, I have no idea how much information he has that could lead to my downfall."

"So trying to stop them is a preventative measure," Lincoln surmised.

"Yes."

"Why don't you send me to put a stop to it, then? It sounds like they're competent, at least enough to best the Order without me, but if I was there, wouldn't there be a better chance of defeating them?"

Lincoln attempted to ask the question as innocently as possible, but it wasn't innocent. Throughout this conversation, he had been forming a theory, and the answer to his question could confirm or deny it.

But it didn't matter how innocently he asked it, because Bill could, of course, read his mind. After staring at Lincoln for an uncomfortable minute, the demon said, "I thought you didn't want to regain your memory anymore."

"I don't," said Lincoln, "not nearly as much as I used to. I am still curious, though." May as well ask outright, since Bill already knew he was thinking it. "Did I know the Pines?"

"I am not going to answer that question." Bill narrowed his eye. "You've already gotten enough out of me. The only reason I dare tell you anything is because, should you ever start to tell anyone, I can just possess you to prevent it."

The demon floated up high enough that Lincoln had to crane his neck to see him. "Gravitational anomalies," he said. "They're coming, so don't panic. And try to stay inside. Better you get thrown around a cave than fly up into the air and then plummet back down."

"What are you going to do?" Lincoln asked. "How are you going to stop the Pines?"

Bill sighed. "Keep throwing Order members at them, I suppose. I'll attempt to turn the Pines against each other, too. Nice to know you'll be here worrying about my success."

Lincoln gave a bow. "I always wish success upon my master."

Bill paused. Then he laughed. "There was a time," he said, "when you truly meant that. Farewell, Blind Eye. Hopefully the next time we see each other, it'll be in victory."

Bill turned and flew into the setting sun.

Lincoln looked around the dusky sky of his dream world, frozen in a perpetual sunset. He could go flying again. . . but Bill had thoroughly killed that mood. So he sat on the edge of his floating patch of land and gazed down on the world below.

Before he had lost his memory, Lincoln had known the Pines. He was sure of it. Bill couldn't lie outright, he could only refuse to answer. If the answer had been no, he would've said no. But he didn't.

A lot of things fit into place then. Why Lincoln wasn't allowed to go near the Pines, why he'd been kicked out just before the Pines infiltrated the Order. It was because he'd known the Pines. Because, for whatever reason, Bill couldn't let them find him.

Or let Lincoln remember them, perhaps, but he doubted that would happen. His memory had been gone for thirty years; there was almost no chance of retrieving it now.

Years ago, that would have filled him with rage. Now, he only felt a dull twinge of sadness. A lot had happened in thirty years. Lincoln had built a new life for himself.

Yet as he sat on his grassy island, feet dangling over the dreamworld below, he couldn't help but feel that his previous life had been a better one.