TW: Fire, Gore
Pov: Scarlet (DoubleLife!Pearl)
Her eyes darted open to a desperate, choked cry. "SCARLET- Scarlet wake up, you have to get out!"
Her lungs stung, and her nose filled with the scent of smoke. She jumped up, to see a circle of violet fire nearby. She froze, searching for the way out of the blanket fort that Sun and herself had shared the past few nights. Her wings had grown, she realized that after a second, and it threw off her balance, falling back to the ground.
Someone grabbed her, dragging her, wrapping their wings around her, pulling her out.
She barely made it out of the prison of blankets and pillows before the two of them fell to the ground, gasping for clean air, despite the fact there was none in the home Grian had lived in. She had been somewhat used to the scent of smoke, but it still caused memories to surface...
No. She shook the thoughts off, glancing behind her at her wings. They were white, slick with blood. She vaguely remembered the pain from the dream, but at least the blood was silver, not purple.
"I have to get Sun out..." The person who saved her called. Pearl. Grian had gone missing recently, similar to Scott, but no one told her the circumstances of their disappearance.
A scream met their ears, full of pain. "STOP- I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE HERE!" Sun yelled, as the flames began to eat the blankets.
"Can't we just use water- '' Scarlet's thoughts were scrambling, she didn't want to lose someone she actually trusted... Tears pricked her eyes, but she forced them back.
"Not with magical fire!" Pearl replied frantically, pacing, her wings fluffed up. "Shoot shoot shoot- If he dies, he won't respawn!"
"WHAT-" Scarlet's mind instantly began racing faster, and she came to a split second decision. "I'm going in." Before Pearl could react, she sprung up, darting back into the blanket fort. She trusted Sun, and she would die to save them.
Fire instantly met her eyes, stinging them with smoke and she paused. Every instinct was screaming at her to stop. Sun was saying something, but the roar of the flames were too loud to hear them. She tucked her wings in instinctively, and ran through. She grabbed the limp form of Sun in the center of the fire, and dragged, dragged them, fire lapping at her, making her wince, and every breath making her cough, but still, just a bit further, almost, ALMOST...
Arms grabbed her, tugging the two of them out. Scarlet collapsed on the ground, just outside of the range of the fire, and began to cough, her body trying to expel the toxins it inhaled.
"Sun, wake up! Please!" Pearl shook the limp body, panic filling her voice. "Shoot, shoot he's not breathing!"
"WHAT-" Scarlet yelled, pushing herself up, still coughing from the smoke inhalation.
"I GOT THE MESSAGE-" Gem yelled, appearing with a flash, feathered wings, not unlike her own, spread behind her, almost like the sun. She was also wearing a pink dress, which caused Scarlet to squint, before putting her mind back onto the matter at hand. "STEP BACK!"
A bright flash met the two's eyes, as they winced, and waited, waited... Scarlet coughed a few more times, before speaking "Is it-"
"Shush..." Pearl whispered, worry filling her tone of voice. "Let her focus..."
An agressive coughing filled the room as the light disappeared.
"It is resolved." Gem spoke over it. She sighed. "Sorry... That took a lot out of me. Could... I talk to Scarlet?"
"Yes, sure... Sun, buddy, you're okay..." Pearl waved the two off, while making sure Sun was alright.
Scarlet winced at the off-handed dismissal. It stung. Her skin still hurt from running through the flames, her back aching from the wings, but she was ignored. To be fair, Sun needed more help. But the dismissal was all too familiar to the ones from before...
No. Not thinking about that. Screw all of those backstabbing jerks, they were all long dead anyway... She swallowed, nodding to Gem.
Gem reached out a hand, tilting her head. "I didn't mean to make it seem you didn't have a say, but we have some things to talk about. Would you like to join me?" She had appeared to have sensed Scarlet's discomfort.
Her wings puffed up a bit, as the movement was familiar. But it... couldn't hurt. "... Whatever." She reached out, grasping the hand of the elf. The world flickered around them as a bright light surrounded them, causing Scarlet to close her eyes tightly.
When they opened, she was somewhere she'd never seen. Halls of quartz surrounded them, light grey carpets lay underfoot. Nearby, a fountain elegantly flowed water, and beings with wings of every color were walking around. Everyone was wearing robes of white, with accents of different colors like Red, Purple, Yellow, Lime, and others.
Her eyes darted around, taking it all in, as a hand rested on her shoulder.
"Welcome to the court of the Celestials. You are one of us now." Gem spoke in an odd language, the words silky and soft. Scarlet shouldn't understand it... But she did.
Scarlet's head turned to see Gem's outfit warping, now in white robes with Yellow accenting. Her wings, similar to Scarlets, were a dabbling of yellow and orange, bringing a sunrise to mind.
"What do you mean!" Scarlet spoke a bit louder of a voice then she intended, and a couple people shot her a glare.
One even spoke, this one in robes very similar to gem. "Gemini Tay, you are a celestial of the sun court, I'd think teach your pupil to only utilize the blessed tongue within these halls. Do not scorn us with such an insult again. Also get your pupil some robes, they look like a mortal commoner." They looked Scarlet up and down, disgust and scorn filling their eyes. She glared back.
The judgement enraged her, and she wanted to punch this smug little jerk who was pretending to be better than her. She was about to retort, but Gem made a motion, her hands glowing, and suddenly her mouth latched shut, unable to open. She hated this. Why did her body refuse her? Even if it was something Gem did, she hated the idea of her own body betraying her... The one thing she could rely on... And why did Gem do this to her? She hated it, so so much, it made her feel trapped and alone and-
Gem bowed, the movement and speech shaking her out of her thoughts. "My apologies Ara, I did not have time to teach them of our customs-" Gem sounded almost sheepish or guilty, and her voice was quiet, barely audible.
"No excuses. We must not shame ourselves like this. We are celestials, we have all the time we need-" Ara replied, their voice scornful, and superior, their condescending gaze switching to Gem rather than Scarlet.
"Yet when it comes to the prophecy, we have all but too little, as we must work with mortal time." Gem retorted, her voice firm and stern.
Scarlet had never heard Gem like this... She was normally hard to upset, despite Scarlet's winning personality, Gem never got mad at her. Scarlet supposed she didn't know her well enough... Gem was a celestial? She spoke of non-celestials as Mortals, as if she was better than them? It's almost like her personality did a full flip from what she saw before. Served her right for expecting the best of someone.
"You have nothing to do with the prophecy, Gemini, you are not ranked high enough to stick your nose into the higher up's business! We've told you this far too many times-" Ara shook their head, appearing to begin getting irritated, sparks of anger igniting in their gaze.
"One of my servers, the ones you keep telling me to leave, the ones that you say contain nothing of use, contains ALL of those mentioned in the prophecy, so either give me a promotion or allow me to 'stick my nose' into it, as you worded it." Gem interrupted Ara mid-sentence, her words causing Scarlet to pause, her mind racing... Prophecy..? What did Gem mean? Did this have to do with her? She wanted answers, not more questions, but she couldn't speak, something was pressing on her chest, she was finding it hard to breathe...
"Why did you not inform us of this sooner?" Ara inquired, not even caring about the existence of Scarlet at this point, however, she preferred it this way.
"I had to confirm my suspicions. The one of the sands is a watcher now, I believe the one of peace has been converted to the listeners, and this one, the one of blood, is here now, and she is one of us." Gem spoke in riddles, but at the end of the phrase, she motioned at Scarlet.
Ara turned to look at her, their gaze meeting her eyes. She was finding it even harder to breathe, gasping, gasping, trying to breathe, to understand, but it was out of nowhere, too hard to think, to breathe... Her vision was fuzzy, almost tunneling... Her legs buckled beneath her, and she collapsed, trying to breathe.
"SH-" Gem and Ara spoke together, as reality finally faded from her vision, replaced by darkness...
A/N:
Sorry if the editing on this chapter is sloppy/not as great as the others, I had a bit of an off-day, but I still wanted to get smth out, which is why this is late! Very sorry!
WC:
- Xera