Grounded

What's this? Me writing Gem angst when I don't even watch her pov? *le gasp* 😲

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Third Person's P.O.V.

Pain.

That's the first thing Gem recognized as she slowly came to. A dull ache coursed through her bruised and battered body. Harsh stings that came from small cuts littered across her arms and legs made the princess hiss as she tried to push herself up. Upon moving, a sharp pain made Gem freeze. Fear swallowing her whole and making her blood run cold. Panic quickly rose up to accompany her terror.

"No..." Gem whispered, "No! No! No! Please no!"

The Princess of Dawn took a deep breath. Her chest and shoulders shuddered throughout the motion. It did nothing to calm her down as she slowly turned her head. Fear evident in her dark green eyes the entire time it took her to glance behind her. Gem's heart sunk at the sight that greeted her.

"No!" Gem cried. Her distressed yell echoing throughout the forested area she had crash landed in earlier. Panic immediately consumed the princess as she all but thrashed about. Desperate to stand up and spread her wings. Desperate to prove that her eyes had deceived her. That what she saw couldn't be true. It just couldn't!

Gem had barely gotten to her knees when she screamed in pain. Her wings seizing up as red hot pain tore through them. Particularly in the areas that had taken the brunt of the damage. Tears welled in the butterfly hybrid's eyes. Blurring Gem's vision and increasing her already prominent panic. As such, it didn't take long for the tears to fall and for pained shouts and whines to spill from Gem's lips almost constantly.

The princess of Dawn stifled her cries as she heard a twig snap in the distance. Her wings instinctively stiffened into a ready to fly position. The sudden movement drew a sharp yelp from Gem. After which, she didn't even bother to withhold her sobs. Her previous yelp had definitely alerted whoever or whatever broke that twig to her location. They would be here any minute now. Everything within Gem was screaming at her to fly away or run but she couldn't. Not in her current state at least.

"Gem!" someone gasped from a few steps behind her. The princess whipped her head around in surprise. She hadn't heard the figure approach in her distress. Gem stared up at them through eyes clouded with tears. It took a while for the person's features to come into focus. The feature that made it Gem realize who was standing behind her was the telltale pink hair only one emperor possesses.  

"L-Lizzie?"

"Oh my gosh!" the feline ruler exclaimed, "Gem your... your wings they-" Lizzie cut herself off with a harsh swallow. A look of horror and concern weaved its way onto the mayor's face. Gem felt yet another wave of tears build up behind her eyes. They quickly spilled over as the hopelessness of her situation truly began to set in.

"D-Don't panic!" Lizzie said as she rifled through her inventory, "I'll get you out of my berry bush defenses and to Animalia's medical facilities. We'll patch you up the best we can."

At Lizzie's statement, Gem only cried harder. The sobs that wracked her body only agitated her wings further. Waves upon waves of pain coursed through the appendages and subsequently through Gem. Each ache only served to cement what the princess had been trying to deny even before Lizzie came to her aid. There was no healing her wings. No magic in existence nor prosthetic could restore the delicate nature that is a butterfly hybrid's wings. It simply wasn't possible.

"I'm sorry Gem," Lizzie said as she snipped away the last of the berry bushes keeping the princess trapped, "I'm so sorry." The feline pocketed her shears and pulled Gem to her feet as gently as she could. It was no easy feat given the height difference between the two rulers but Lizzie managed to support the princess of Dawn against her smaller frame. As the pair slowly made their way to the medical facilities in Animalia, Gem almost inaudibly admitted to herself the undeniable truth of the whole ordeal.

"I will never be able to fly again... I'm forever grounded."

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When I tell you this idea came about randomly, I mean it was really fucking random. Like, I was just opening YouTube to catch up on Joel's pov and my brain remembered Gem has butterfly wings and I thought, "Can butterfly wings heal when they get damaged like cuts on humans do?" and BAM this was born. I'm not even joking.

Have a good rest of your day/night!