It's been a few hours since everyone left the house.

Since you hugged Techno and sent him on his way.

Since you awkwardly stood in front of a personal conversation.

Everyone was gone.

Ranboo, Techno and Tommy, all traipsing off to who knows where, while you were perfectly content to keep watch of the fire. It was a long day, and you calmed yourself by doing the menial task of chopping wood, and adding it to the fire.

However, after being away from... home... for so long, your mind eventually drifts to the sub task you always did to keep yourself occupied. Which has you standing from your warm spot in excitement.

How could you forget??

You begin moving around, gathering hats and gloves, putting on the cloak. Your cloak.

The one Techno gave you, and made with care you doubt he'd ever say aloud.

You have a mission.

A very important mission to complete today.

You've been away from... home for a good while- and today you haven't had time to do the thing you always did while you were here.

Harass Carl.

With that notion, you start rummaging through the chest to search for a spare golden carrot.

Which isn't hard to find. You dig around, you find a massive amount of them, you grab three of them, and then you head for the door.

When you step outside, it's just as blistering cold as it always is, wind and snow alike pushing against your figure. Thankfully it's not actually snowing. Merely wind pushing up loose snow and blowing it elsewhere.

The stairs are slippery, but you manage, pausing to look at your hands- three gold carrots in one, the other empty.

Heat was seeping off of you by the second.

Now you remember one of the reasons why you despised it out here.

Focus.

Your mission.

Trotting out into the open, you begin looking around the area for Carl, who you spot in the middle of the yard.

He was a good 20 feet from the house?

Give or take-

Doing what horses do, which in this case was digging at the snow and snorting hot breath as he played.

Funny guy.

Playing with snow.

You started your way towards him, making a soft clicking noise to let him know you were approaching.

His ears flick up in alarm, head turning to you, and a nervous neigh jittering from him.

You pause.

You're only halfway there.

But you still hold your hand out, armed with a golden carrot and a dream-

He snorts. Familiar with this. You've done it before.

You do it a lot.

So when he anxiously begins his trot over to you- hooves dull against the snow, tail partially flagging in alarm- you stand completely still.

"Hey bud-" you softly say, "Got your favorite treat-"

He huffs, inching closer and closer, nose finally hovering at your hand to inquisitively puff at the carrot you're holding out.

You notice a tad second too late that the wind is blocked by something.

The breeze that was flowing into you pauses, and with it, Carl's gently sniffing does too.

"Boo!"

Frozen in place, you watch in dread as Carl turns heel and books it across the snow in a straight line away from you.

You weren't the one who said that.

And you definitely weren't the one who cast a faint shadow standing next to your own shadow.

You slowly turn around, to see who was ignorant enough to scare Carl off.

And when you look, you find Ghostbur, looking down at you with a happy little grin, "Did I scare you?"

"No." You grit out, "But clearly you scared Carl."

You glance back to see where Carl was, even farther away then before, staring at the both of you with his head held high, and ears deadlocked in your direction.

"Heheh- Carl's a scared Lil guy-" Ghostbur laughs- so innocent sounding.

"Yeah. He is." You say, sour feeling because he interrupted a trust exercise, "How'd you get behind me anyways?"

The spector squinted, looking up in the air as he thought back on what happened, "Well, I was near the trees when you first came out of the house, so I waved at you- but you didn't see it, so I caught up to you and you still didn't notice, so I took it as a good moment to do some haunting!" His wiggling fingers were amusing, and he didn't sound mischievous at all. Every word out of his mouth sounded like a genuine and happy word- almost like a child's tone of voice.

You huffed.

No point in getting angry.

What's done is done, Wilbur didn't have bad intentions, so you just shrugged and went, "Could I ask you to not repeat it if Carl's around?"

"Boo?"

"Yeah- it scared Carl off- I wanted to pet his big horsey snoot."

The ghost let out an excited noise, "Well why didnt you say that? I can help you!"

Without waiting for a response, Wilbur walked off into the snow, directly towards Carl, who watched him like a hawk.

You were fully expecting him to succeed, because Carl wasn't scared of other people.

Just you- because that's what you do to animals.

They feel something from you, and know to avoid you-

But instead of Carl complacency letting Wilbur get close like you expected, he started trotting away from the ghost?

What??

You had to rub at your eyes at what you saw.

It wasn't your imagination.

The horse avoided him everytime the ghost got close, trotting circle around him at every chance he got- neighing in panic if Wilbur ever got even a smidgen too close.

Did- Carl just not trust anyone??

You watched again, as Ghostbur tried running after him, Carl outpacing Wilbur immediately and nearly kicking his hind legs.

You can't believe it. You got it wrong.

Carl didn't trust anyone.

You bit your cheek.

Anyone but Techno apparently.

Eventually, Ghostbur comes over to you, his head dejectedly hanging- slumping like a wilted dandelion as he stopped in front of you.

"I couldn't catch him..."

You laugh.

And Wilbur flickers his eyes up to you, a small smile slowly stretching back onto his face, confused at why you were laughing, but happy you weren't angry.

"It's fine Wilbur- haha- I didn't expect you to, but thank you for trying."

He pauses, smiling back and laughing with you for a moment before sombering.

His smile stays a small sobering one, but it felt... even smaller.

He raises a single finger in the air, "You keep calling me Wilbur-"

"Wilbur?"

"Yes. Do I remind you of him?"

You give the ghost a hesitant glance.

"Not at all actually. Which is weird considering you are him."

His face drops.

A little more sad and insecure then before.

You eye that look before asking, "Do you want to remind people of yourself?"

"No...! Maybe..." He sighs, turning away and staring at Carl, clenching something in his hand before holding it out to you, "Here- have some blue!"

His voice reverted back to happy and calm at that.

Which confused you to no end, but you took what he offered you regardless.

"You good?" You ask, and he gives you a confused blink.

"Yes...? Why wouldn't I be!" He smiles.

"Are you even Wilbur anymore?" You ask him. He talks about himself like he's a separate individual. He acts like a separate individual. And with all the reactions he's given you when you've said 'Wilbur' you're more then ready to switch how you address him.

Especially if he gets so... distressed looking.

"No...?" He winces, "Everyone wants me to be-- don't you want me to be??"

"Nah." You respond with, which has him whipping his head to you in confusion.

"What?"

"The Wilbur I knew was- kinda--" you pause, "Fucking crazy? No offense."

He stares at you in silence.

"I kinda like the new you. Even if it feels like you're avoiding stuff that should be worked through."

His smile worms its way back on, eyes squinting with a little cheeky excited look. He doesn't speak, but his facial expression is enough.

"So you're really not Wilbur?"

"In theory I am." Ghostbur says, "But I don't feel like him- I feel like..."

"Feel like?"

"Me." He grins, "Me! Ghostbur! And I like when people smile!"

You give a small smile back, "Oh yeah? What else do you like?"

"I like Tommy!" He cheers, "And I like Techno!"

When you start slowly approaching Carl again, the ghost follows, not staring at you, but happily skipping next to you, listing off things he likes, "I like Phil too- And Niki- and Tubbo- and I love happy people--"

You laugh.

Not for a second thinking about interrupting him.

"Fuck Eret tho-" Wilbur says, crossing his arms with a huff, before digging in his pockets to pull out more blue dye, "I love blue too!"

You pause walking, tugging Wilbur-- Ghostbur-- when he kept skipping along.

You were at the edge of the horse's, 'run away' space, and didn't want Ghostbur walking too close and spooking Carl again.

"So what's.... blue?" You ask, holding a carrot out, eyes locked on Carl's distrustful gaze.

"Glad you asked!" The ghost happily says, "I use it to get rid of all the unhappy thoughts!"

He holds a clear piece of something out, letting you look at it, "It starts off clear, and then it sucks out all the sadness you might have-"

With a blink of your eyes you notice what he's holding starts changing color-

Like someone dropping blood into water, it swirls around until what he's holding is completely blue.

"Then, you can just throw it away- and all your sadness is gone!"

Ah.

He's sad.

He's giving people blue, so that they take away his sadness.

That's... not a very healthy way to get over things.

To forcefully get rid of emotions.

But who are you to judge when he holds the blue towards you, offering it.

And who are you to judge when you take it with your free hand, and watch as his grin gets just a little bit happier and lighter.

"That's very neat." You say, watching him vibrate in happiness at the praise.

"It is isn't it!" His soft smile stays soft, even as he looks over at Carl, who had just took the first tentative step towards you.

You watched the ghost's eyes narrow in on the horse. Good intentions to catch Carl rearing their head in his thoughts, but you cut off his train of thought, "Don't chase him. Let him come to us."

He turns to look at you, taking in your calm facial expression with confusion.

Clearly he thought the best way to get Carl was to run at him. But regardless, he nodded and waited with you.

Carl inched closer.

Tentative step after tentative step, hot breath fanning everywhere as the wind whisked it away.

He paused every once and awhile, eyeing Ghostbur more then you. Clearly he didn't trust Ghostbur after the spector chased him everywhere.

But patience was something you were good at.

You stood.

You watched.

You waited.

And finally, Carl got close enough.

His soft horse nose snuffled at the carrots, hot breath being fanned all over your hands.

His ears flickered to and fro, checking any noise he heard, ready to dart.

But after enough snuffling, he started eating the carrot, taking it out of your hand and munching the rest of it up relatively fast.

"Aww- Carl-" you coo at hum, "Auch a precious boy- big precious guy likes good treats?? Yes???--"

You can feel Ghostbur's stare burning into you, but you ignore it in favor of digging another carrot out.

"Stinky goblin want another one?? Yes? Yes you do??" Carl snorts at you, telling by tone of voice that you had more to offer him, and ready to be greedy for it.

You hold another carrot out, this time closer to you, and Carl takes the bait again, shuffled up and mouthing at your hand until he grabbed the carrot with his big horse snoot and crunched away on it.

You cooed again.

He's so fuzzy and soft looking.

You reached a hand out, the one with no carrot, and gently thumbed at the side of his head, watching him snort in irritance at you, before being silenced as your other hand pulled the last carrot out.

You noticed you're starting to get good at this.

Good at luring in this darn scaredy cat horse who turns tail at every noise.

With one hand holding the carrot, and the other hand already in touch distance, you could scritch at his big fuzzy jaw all you wanted.

Which you did, soothing over his big horse head, pushing his mane out of his eyes to pet at his white blaze.

"Precious horso. You're a good horse aren't you Carl."

He snorted, sniffing at your now empty carrot hand, before flicking his ears back in distaste.

No carrots, no pets.

He indignantly shakes his head, before clopping his way through the snow to go back to whatever horse thing he was doing before you interrupted him.

"Carl likes you more then he likes me." Ghostbur says.

"Bah- nonsense. I've just been working with him more, and not chasing him around the field like a mad man." You stick a finger in the air, "It's all about the approach. Sometimes you can't force things."

Ghostbur nods at you like he's taking notes.

"Sides, Carl's never gonna like anyone more then Techno. The man fawns over Carl."

"Techno takes very good care of everything he loves. Not that he likes to have people know he cares about things." Ghostbur smiles, "He never did like having weaknesses."

You chuff.

Nothing left to say.

Only giving a forlorn glance to Ghostbur.

You remember when you looked Wilbur in the eyes- when you saw nothing but madness in his murky depths.

And yet now, all that remained of him and his legacy, was Ghostbur.

A happy, pleasant, ghost of everything he was- everything he had tried to run from. He had no worries, and if he did, he forgot them.

You assume.

You wouldn't know if he really was, but you think you have a good gadge on the spector, after all he was very transparent about what he felt, openly telling people everything he thought in the most pleasant way possible.

You had to wonder.

"How do you feel about not being Wilbur?"

The snow was cold.

And ghostbur hadn't reacted once to the temperature, but after you said that, he started to curl in on himself like he needed warmth.

You watched another clear object turn blue as he whispered out a... strangly soft...

..

"...Wrong...."