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“Stay with me now, Jasper.”
Thick, acid-lacquered spears. All over her body. She felt each of them, piercing her designed flesh, impaling deep inside and rotting her from the core. The tug of them against her skin as she tried to slow her own breathing made the tears slide from the corners of her eyes to the dirt of the ground beneath her.
There were hands- small, delicate, cool hands on her face.
“Focus on my voice, Jasper. Can you hear me? You’ve got to hold on.”
Her mind seemed full of fog, but she remembered what happened. She remembered the attack on Little Homeworld. It was the humans - the ones who didn’t understand their kind, the ones who came from far away on airplanes and vans.
“Please, for me.”
She heard the shot and had followed its trajectory. Then its target. Pearl.
The panic, combined with the heaviness that coiled around her heart, compelled her into action. It happened so fast, in a flash she was in front of her, protecting her from the barrage of intricately and specially designed weapons. Now, she was lying weakly, shaking, agonizingly waiting for the bliss of vanishing in a puff of dust. But, something was wrong. She couldn’t retreat into her gem, she couldn’t escape the searing pain. She was anchored. Trapped.
She wanted to scream, to shout, to punch and kick at every stinking human, rip them apart at the seams like blades of Earth grass, but she just couldn’t. Is this what it was to die? She didn’t realize before, but shattering and dying now seemed so apparently different from one another.
“Jasper! Please, Jasper! Don’t go, don’t you dare!”
The face of her companion was unfocused above her, but the fear and concern were sharp and caused the larger gem to become even more alarmed than before. Jasper could not tolerate the sheer terror and sadness in her face, the desperation in her voice. She summoned her trembling hand and gingerly gripped the shaft of the spear in her shoulder, tearing it from herself swiftly.
“Jasper?” Pearl sniffled, watching the spear drop from Jasper’s ocher-stained hand. “I’ll help you, hang on.” Pearl gripped one at her thigh. There was a shallow pool of Jasper's blood puddling around the base of the spear that disappeared as it burrowed into the skin. “Here we go.”
It was pulled slowly, as carefully as possible. Jasper let a strangled sob escape as the tip surfaced. Her arms were going numb, she couldn’t grasp the spear poking out from her ribs. “I’ll get it. Just breathe. You’ll be alright.”
She couldn’t keep count, but she could feel the air on the open wounds where there had been thin poles moments ago. It stung. They all stung.
“This one’s going to hurt the most, I'm afraid. It’s the last one.” Pearl said, taking a deep breath as she gripped the arrow. It was in the center of her torso. Jasper could see through her haze that Pearl was having a difficult time, knowing this was all causing Jasper excruciating pain. She could see the battle inside her head, between wanting to relieve Jasper’s suffering, knowing she was the cause, not wanting to do more damage but finding no other option.
Jasper clumsily lifted her hand, willed her fingers to wrap around both of Pearl’s hands. She looked at Pearl reassuringly. Pearl gave a curt nod, then both of them began removing the last spear together. It got caught halfway through, snagging on muscle and ripping more flesh as it was retrieved. Jasper gasped, choked on her breath, but finally there were none left.
Pearl hovered over her, taking up her entire field of vision, as if she were trying to keep her partner from seeing anything or anyone else. Her fingers brushed Jasper’s hair from her eyes, and she offered a watery smile. “It’s okay, Jasper. I’ve got you. You can let go. I’ll keep you safe.” She pressed her lips against Jasper’s forehead and whispered, “I love you.”
Jasper’s eyes closed, and finally, there was bliss.