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Pearl should’ve just ignored the noise from the forest.
She had so much to do! Her precious doggies were well-fed for now, thanks to the meat rotting in Ren and BigB’s abandoned home, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still time for hunting! Hunting was the only thing she wanted to do!
No, that wasn’t true, part of her wanted to run into the middle of Mid-Century Meadow in the dead of night and dance shrieking under the moonlight like a phantom, but that seemed a little bit irrational when she had so many enemies around. Even with her instincts singing that it was time to kill and die, she needed to be careful.
But the noise was so strange! It didn’t sound like a player, but it wasn’t a normal mob sound either. It sounded like a crying animal, like something small and scared. She hadn’t lost track of any of her puppies, had she? Raising a finger to her dogs for silence, she slipped into the afternoon shadows of the deep woods.
She was only a few yards into the woods before the smell of blood hit her, cloying and metallic. Tilly perked up her head and flicked her ears back with an inquisitive growl. “Shhh,” Pearl reminded her. “We’re being sneaky.” Another dozen yards and she spotted the body, splayed across a small clearing like a forgotten doll with a dark pool of blood under the head.
It was Scar, she realized right away. She’d seen the message only an hour ago, Grian had died to the warden and dragged his partner to the afterlife along with him. But why would Scar be on the surface, and so far from the water pipe? Was the warden up here too? That would be exciting, wouldn’t it? She thought that Impulse and Bdubs’ weird little house would look much better with a warden in the swimming pool. It might be even more fun than just hunting them down!
Pearl held very still for a minute, waiting to see if things got unusually dark and loud. She didn’t hear any roaring, but the crying was now louder and much closer. She took a few more steps towards the body and finally found the source of the noise. Scar’s little Jellie cat was crouched on his chest, meowing piteously and batting at his face as though hoping he’d wake up one more time. Scar of course could not respond, his dull eyes forever on the sky in a frozen expression that looked like surprise.
“Oh no, baby...”
Pearl’s heart had maybe not been working quite right for a bit of a while now, but it squeezed with pity for the sorry little creature. Scar had picked up this Jellie when she was just a tiny kitten, small enough to tuck into the pocket of his zookeeper’s uniform. Pearl had gotten to hold her once, when Scar had wanted to keep her safe from the powdered snow they’d been playing with. Jellie had since grown into awkward adolescence, all too-big ears and too-long legs and eyes with just a hint of baby blue still in the green. There was blood on her gray and white fur, but it was hard to tell if she was hurt or just dirty. “Poor little nugget.”
Motioning her dogs to sit, Pearl stepped into the clearing. Jellie looked up at her and made a chirruping noise that was clearly asking for help to wake her friend. Pearl crouched down and closed Scar’s eyes for him because it seemed like the right thing to do and because the idea of them getting all dried out made her feel itchy all over. Worlds without respawn were weird and gross. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do them anymore. Jellie reached out and caught her sleeve with a single claw. “Sorry, little nugget,” Pearl told her. “He’s not coming back this time. You’re on your own.”
Pearl rose and turned to leave but stopped when Jellie’s cries started up again, louder and more desperate than ever. She was butting her head against Scar’s chin now, hard bumps that Pearl thought had to hurt her little kitty noggin. With a sigh, Pearl reached down and scooped up the cat, pulling her away from her dead buddy. “Come on, little kitty-kitty,” she encouraged, “you can’t just stay here like this.”
Jellie clearly did not want to be removed, judging by the way she dug claws into the tatters of Scar’s black shirt, but she also didn’t want to be left behind, judging by the way she sank her claws into Pearl’s hoodie and trousers and the back of her left hand. Pearl didn’t blame her. When you were scared and lonely enough, it was easy to grab hold of anything you could and not care if it hurt somebody. She cooed comforting nonsense to the kitten, stroking her fur and checking her for hurts with the deftness that came from taking care of her own dangerous pets. She didn’t seem to be injured, at least.
A few moments of attention was enough to have Jellie calming in Pearl’s arms, at least to the point where she probably wasn’t going to claw anybody’s face off. “What are we going to do with you, hmm?” Pearl asked, running her fingers over the red ribbon and shiny copper tag that was Jellie’s collar. Simple and serviceable, but in a world with few bees Scar must have polished it by hand every few days for the copper to keep its luster. Scar would not be happy to see his poor Jellie so dirty and mussed.
Pearl wondered if he was still hanging around as a ghost. If so, should she send Jellie to him? Probably not, she decided after a moment. She wasn’t quite sure whether animals got to be ghosts, and it would be a shame to be wrong. Besides, she didn’t want to kill a kitten even for a kind reason. As though sensing her bad thoughts, Jellie butted her head against Pearl’s fingers and purred until Pearl gave in and began scritching her ears and underneath her chin. It felt nice.
Whistling to her dogs, Pearl turned her steps toward the edge of the forest, leaving Scar’s body behind. She might come back and loot it later, but it didn’t seem urgent. Grian would’ve kept their best stuff on him, if they’d had anything left worth keeping. She had her own gear and plenty of food for another day or two. Beyond that, well, there didn’t seem to be much point.
“I could bring you home with me,” Pearl mused aloud, absently loosening a clump of dried blood from Jellie’s fur as she walked. “No, wait, can’t! It’s all burnt down.” She laughed for a long time at that, thinking about all the cobble she’d placed to avoid her tower catching fire. Guess that was a lot of wasted time and cobble and dogs!
“Anyway, between you and me,” she murmured to the cat, “none of us are going home anyway. Your daddy was just the first to go, but we’ll all be there soon!”
She shifted Jellie in her grip, held the kitten at arm’s length like lifting a child by the armpits. “Will you be sad when I die, little nugget?” she asked, staring into those blue-green eyes. Jellie mrrped quizzically. “No, I guess not. You’re not my real soulmate.”
Pearl snuggled the little cat back against her chest, then tromped up the hill towards the ruined spiky fort with her dogs trailing behind. The Jelliebear reserve had been thoroughly destroyed, all blasted out and burnt up by Ren and Jimmy when they’d gone red and wanted the enchanter. They were both dead now though, so the surviving Jelliebears still lingering among the stands of bamboo were probably safe.
With careful fingers Pearl untied the red ribbon from Jellie’s neck, tucking it and the copper pendant into her own pocket. She didn’t know if it was possible to untame an animal once it loved a person, but it seemed worth a try to keep Jellie from waiting for Scar to come home for the rest of her life. It wasn’t fair to keep her bound to someone no longer capable of returning her love.
“Here you go,” she told the kitten, crouching and setting her down on the edge of the largest bamboo grove. “You can live with your big cousins now. They’ll take care of you, teach you how to eat plants and do somersaults. You’ll love it.”
The little tabby gave Pearl a look that said she did not share Pearl’s confidence even a little bit, but Pearl was firm. “Don’t give me those big eyes! You can’t come with me, I’ve got to go murder a whole bunch of people! And then die, probably!” She made a stern face at the kitten. “If you see any other people come by here, you better hide. They are not your friends.”
Jellie meowed plaintively.
“Oh, fine.” Pearl tossed the kitten a few scraps of fish, all she had left in her inventory. Jellie ignored them, watching Pearl like she was all the birds in the birdbath. “I’m leaving now. Take care of yourself, okay? And try not to be sad. He wouldn’t want you to be sad.”
Pearl whistled to call up the dogs one more time and turned to go, her steps loud in the crunchy layer of burnt mangrove roots. When she left, Jellie did not follow her.