Work Text:
When the scouts announced that the attack force was returning, everyone crowded into the front hall. Ember, feeling a little out of his depth, hung back to perch on one of the balconies. Soon the first of the warriors began to enter the hall, Malachite with them. "Make room, you fools! We have wounded!" she bellowed. The crowd began to sort itself out, mentors surging forward while the others drew off to the side.
Pearl landed on the balcony next to him, and Ember jumped; he hadn't even seen her come in. "Ember, come up to my bower," she said. Puzzled, he followed her. Once they arrived, she turned to him and said, "Sit down."
He shifted to groundling and sat, beginning to realize that something odd was going on. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Pearl looked at him with an uneasy expression. "Ember, I'm sorry - Coil didn't make it," she said.
It hit him like a punch in the gut; if he hadn't been sitting down, his knees would have crumpled beneath him. Coil, who had been the first warrior to treat him with anything but aloof disdain, who had been the only one to try to explain Moon's peculiar status within Indigo Cloud, who had subtly helped him to orient himself during those first few nightmare weeks - he could feel his face starting to crumple as well.
Pearl shifted to her Arbora form and came to sit beside him, gathering him into her lap like a fledgling. And like a fledgling, he huddled against her, crying into her shoulder. She stroked his hair, saying nothing for a while as the first storm of grief wore itself out.
Eventually he was able to draw back and look up at her. "How did he die?"
"Beyond the Fell killing him, you mean? I don't know," Pearl replied. "I wasn't there when it happened. I'll try to find out who was and have them come and talk with you." She paused, that uneasy expression back on her face. "You know... the pain never does completely go away, but after a while it gets to be more like background noise. Don't be afraid to cry when you have to, or to talk to the mentors if you think that will help." She stood, lifting him easily in her arms and depositing him into the big hanging bed. "Now I have to go and make preparations - we're going to chase down and kill the Fell that escaped. We'll sing for Coil when we get back. You stay here, and I'll send someone with tea." She was back to her usual brisk, testy self by the time she reached the door.
Left to himself, Ember tried to process what had just happened. Everyone knew that there was nothing Pearl hated more than dealing with emotional situations. But she had brought him up here to spare him the shock of hearing about Coil's death in a public setting; she had held him and comforted him and offered him some advice from her own experience. He had no doubt that she would never speak openly about this to him again.
But he would never again doubt that he was loved.