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Pearl was cold.
Spruce slabs that had been saturated with water from the previous week’s rain were now blocks of ice, the rotting planks frozen in time. Dirt paths were covered in a thin layer of snow, with shallow footprints of foxes evidence that the animals had spent some time scavenging for food. She didn’t think foxes came this far south - they were far more suited to colder climates - but these were extraordinary times.
The trees she had watched grow with her Empire were dying. Their leaves were turning orange, deprived of the nutrients they so desperately needed to survive, and a gust of wind was enough to pull more from the branches and carry them off into the frozen fog that covered the world like a blanket.
Pearl wrapped her arms around herself, shivering fingers pressing against the skin of her arms while her teeth chattered like a metronome. Her dress wasn’t suited to weather like this, and while she’d been warned of the eternal winter that Xornoth now had the power to unleash… She thought she had more time. More time to prepare, to stock up on food for however long this would be, to craft more insulated clothes and gather wood for fires. She hadn’t foreseen her crops dying almost overnight, the grain she’d worked so hard to cultivate failing and the animals she’d reared huddling for warmth.
The little wheat that she could rescue from the cold was given to the animals - she couldn’t let them suffer when she was the one that hadn’t prepared for this eventuality - but the matter of the coming days was one that quickly became heavy on her shoulders.
She could hardly feel the cold when the thought of hunger gnawing away at the stomachs of her and her animals filled her mind. The dread was so much worse, so much more intense, than the cold could ever be.
It wasn’t long before the blue skies above grew clouded, a thick grey cloud bringing with it snow, and her heart sank further.
Eternity really was a long time.
The flakes would have been beautiful had they fallen in the right season. Pearl would have admired them for their uniqueness, she would have been bewitched by them, spending hours of each day watching as they landed and covered the ground beneath. Instead, she watched in horror as sweet berries wilted away, as the already dead stalks of wheat were broken and fell in a heap that couldn’t even be used as compost.
Everything she had worked to create, everything she had sought to build…
And it was her fault. She had helped put the cod head in the End! She couldn’t blame anyone but herself for this. She should have tried harder to protect the Dragon, she should have said something to Gem and fWhip about where to build the labyrinth, but there was no use in looking for someone to blame. Blaming people wasn’t going to fix what had been done, and the last thing they needed now was to be driven further apart.
It was just… Pearl had no idea how to fix it, or even how to survive another day beyond a couple more days. Her food would dwindle, and even killing her animals for meat as a last resort would only get her so far.
But that could be a problem for tomorrow. Today, she would allow herself time to grieve the loss of her creations. She would let herself cry, she would let herself panic, and she would let herself feel and process every emotion that wanted to burst from her chest. If she held it all in and let it fester it would only come to its head at a crucial moment, and with how awful things were already looking she couldn’t risk having a complete breakdown when her allies and her friends needed her to be composed.
Pearl returned to her home for that, though, not wanting to be left out in the cold. She took shelter, taking a flint and steel to light a campfire and huddling as close as she dared to stop the cold that seemed to have permeated her bones. When her shaking had stopped she let her head fall into her hands, fingers carding through her hair and pulling out petals of dying sunflowers.
She had expected to be alone, allowed to move through her emotions at her own pace. She hadn’t expected the sounds of hooves pounding against freshly fallen snow or the drawl of a Scottish accent. Pearl barely had time to wipe the tears from her cheeks when she heard heavy boots crunching at pace toward her home, and barely had time to plaster a smile onto her face before Scott appeared in the doorway of her home.
“Pearl, hi.” He said, a strained smile on his face. “Sorry about… You know… Eternal winter.” He gestured over his shoulder, back to her farms, and Pearl shrugged. What more could she do? Scott was their best bet at getting things back to normal, having him on her good side would be worth it in the long run.
“I can’t stay for long, I’ve got a lot of people to visit, but I knew you were more suited to a warmer climate and so I had my villagers make something for you.”
That got Pearl’s attention, and she got to her feet with a curious look on her face. It seemed to say everything that she couldn’t - worried that the tears she was trying to hide would force their way from her again if she opened her mouth. Scott got the message, though, and continued without any verbal prompting.
“A wool coat. Though I thought you might like it more if it was customised, just come and look, it’s on the back of my stag .” He explained. A gloved hand was offered to Pearl, and she took it happily. Scott was hardly one to judge another for anything, and the squeeze that he gave her was enough to know that he was silently offering an ear or a shoulder, whichever she desired more.
She appreciated him more than she could say, and somehow she assumed she’d never be able to truly thank him for what he was doing.
Stepping back into the cold was unpleasant, but the sight of the stag was not. He was grand, with antlers towering high above her and standing proud, leather armour with fleece lining to make Scott’s time riding the steed more comfortable, and an abundance of chests that looked full to bursting.
“You’re the first we’re visiting.” Scott explained, pulling a key from a chain on his neck and twisting it in the lock of the chest. When it sprung open, Pearl could see exactly what he’d made and her jaw dropped.
“Is that…”
“It is.” He nodded, standing on the tips of his toes and reaching for the edges of the fabric that she could see. Already it was clear that the leather had been dyed with greens and yellows, but it looked like bright yellow sunflowers had been embroidered along the hem of the coat. As Scott pulled it from the chest, unfolding it with one smooth motion, she could see just how padded it was. Even without pulling it over herself she already felt so much warmer.
“Scott…” She whispered, looking over the coat as the fabric stilled. “This is… It’s beautiful.”
“Warm too. I’ve been wearing this wool and leather blend in the mountains for weeks. Some days I have to extinguish the fire because it’s too warm.” He beamed. “Hold your arms out, let me help you put it on. It’s heavy.”
Nodding, Pearl did as instructed. Her arms were held in front of her and Scott moved them into place to slip the coat on as easily as possible. He hadn’t told a lie, it was the warmest thing she’d ever felt. The cotton was soft against her skin - as if the clouds themselves had come down from the sky to envelope her - and it held the heat her body radiated efficiently. Not only that, but the bright patterns were beautiful to look at, and they fit her Empire perfectly.
“What do you think?” Scott asked, busying himself with tying a fastening around her waist. “We might not be allies, but I didn’t want you to freeze.”
“Scott, this is beyond kind.” Pearl said. “I don’t know how to repay you. Everything I’ve been growing has frozen and died, I can’t offer you food, and for something so practical I feel like diamonds aren’t right.”
“I told you already, I don’t want you freezing. I’ve done the same thing for the others.” He smiled gently. “It suits you, and I can’t charge someone that looks that good.” He joked, and the two of them laughed. It was easy to laugh now, and as much as Pearl had wanted to embrace her emotions this was a far more productive way to be spending her day.
“If your crops have failed--”
“This is already too much.” Pearl cut in, wanting to stop him before he could offer anything else, but her attempt was in vain.
“I have some pumpkin seeds to spare. The corruption spread into my crops and I asked Aeor for help. I’m not sure if they’ll grow here, but these seeds are from pumpkins that have grown since then. It’s not much, but it could be worth a try.”
“Scott…” Pearl began, her head tilting to the side as her expression softened, and Scott shook his head.
“This is hardly a kindness, this is making sure you don’t starve, and it might not even work. You aren’t going to convince me not to give you a couple of seeds.” He explained, walking behind his stag to the other chest. “I can’t force you to plant them, but I can’t leave her knowing you don’t have food. If they have the same protection and blessing from Aeor as the crops that I’m growing, they should produce.”
Pearl watched him walk back to her, biting down on her bottom lip as she tried to think of some way to properly thank him. He took her hand in his gloved one, twisting it so that her palm faced the sky, and he dropped the seeds carefully before closing her fingers over them.
“What do I owe you?” She asked. Scott just smiled.
“When I find out how to stop my… How to stop Xornoth, help. Whether it’s a fight, a quest, or something else, help me. We don’t have to be allies beyond that, but Xornoth is an existential threat. I’m going to need all the help I can get to defeat him.”
“Of course.” She replied, laughing at the idea that she wouldn’t have supported him in the first place. There was a difference between winter killing everyone and everything she loved, and the demon amusing her. The only kingdoms that might not aid were the Lost Empire and Mezalea - though Joel would be far less likely to resist than Sausage or Joey. Even Jimmy, at the end of the day, would be hard pressed to refuse Scott over something like this. “I’ll do whatever you need, and if there’s anything I can supply to help I am at your call.”
“Then you’ll plant those seeds and make enough pumpkin pies to feed an army.” Scott told her, turning her hand over once again so he could bow, duck his head, and press a kiss to her knuckles. “If they don’t grow, tell me.”
“I will.” Pearl agreed, watching him get back to his feet and dust down the front of his leather clothes.
With their deal done and their promises made, Pearl helped Scott onto the back of his stag and waved farewell as he rode off toward Katherine. She couldn’t imagine how much the woman would be suffering as her beloved Overgrown was covered with a thick sheet of snow. Everything would be dead. Even if the ground were to thaw that day, it would take weeks of months of rebuilding to have what she had the day before.
But Pearl couldn’t afford to think of the misfortunes of her neighbours, not when one of her hands held the seeds that might feed her and her peers for the foreseeable future. She got to work planting, wasting no time at all as she cut back the dead crops and cleared the snow from a field. Campfires were placed strategically to ensure that the water used to irrigate the farmland remained a liquid, and lanterns were ignited to keep monsters at bay. The last thing she needed was for a creeper to take out the little food she had - or for corruption to sprout and destroy the land completely.
She didn’t eat before going to bed that night: without knowing if the seeds would germinate and grow she didn’t know if she could afford to or if she needed to ration her supplies to last. Even if she was hungry, she at least didn’t have to worry about the cold. The coat that Scott had provided remained firmly on her back, and as she lay in bed and curled her legs up to her chest she found that she was even more snug than she’d imagined being.
Despite the vice-like grip winter had on the world, she extinguished her fire before falling asleep.
When Pearl awoke the next morning it wasn’t to the shadow of a red tentacle tearing through the ground, nor was it to a hard day of labouring in the fields. Instead, she awoke to weak sunbeams pouring through her window and a frozen wasteland outside her front door. A wasteland except for one crucial area.
A pumpkin patch.
The laughter that left her lips was light, relief flowing through her veins as she realised that the pumpkin seeds Scott had given her had grown! Not only had they grown, but they had grown fast, and they had grown big. She’d never seen a fruit so large and couldn’t begin to imagine how many pies she could make with the flesh of just one. More than that, it would be packed full of seeds - they all would - and the small orange dot in a sea of white would soon take over the horizon.
Whatever Aeor had done to allow those plants to grow in the face of frigid conditions, Pearl would never know. But she owed her life to it, and she would thank him in due course.
She just hoped that he liked fresh pumpkin pies.