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When Marina Ida dies, the world stops.
After all, they’ve just lost an international, generational icon. For fifty years she gave her all to the world she loved so dearly. Music that brought people together, mechanical marvels that improved thousands, and a life story that inspired millions.
The world held vigils, and commemorations, and tributes. People spoke tenderly of how she changed their lives. Awards in various fields were to be named after her. People covered her music, and taught about her knowledge of engineering. And after a few weeks, the world kept moving, like it always does.
But Pearl Houzuki’s world never moved again, at least not in the way it did before.
The moment Marina slipped from her grasp, there was nothing anyone could do. Because Marina was her whole world. There was nothing left to spin once she took her last breath.
Pearl had always thought the biggest disservice she would ever do for Marina was to die first, leaving her alone in her pain and mourning. Never had she considered that she would be standing at the podium at her wife’s funeral, a written speech in front of her but still at a complete loss for words.
The faces of everyone present expected her to have something profound to say, because after all, she’d spent nearly all her life loving Marina, and she had always been great with words. But everything just felt so empty. What point was there to talk about Marina to all these people who would never understand what they had?
Pearl thought she understood how loss felt when her mother passed when she was just a child. And then she thought she understood how loss felt when her father passed a few decades ago, leaving her with enormous shoes to fill.
But losing Marina was an entirely new beast, and it was such a slow death too.
Ironically enough she remembered the first signs so clearly. Like an idiot she had chalked up Marina’s uncharacteristic forgetfulness and brain fog to age. In her mind it made sense that her wife’s mind wasn’t going to stay as sharp as it was in her younger years forever.
But it only got worse, at such a rapid pace. Before her eyes Pearl watched as the Marina she knew was slowly chipped away by disordered moods and confusion and lack of memory of major life events.
Looking back on it, Marina had never managed to find her family after leaving the domes. Neither of them had any knowledge of her family’s history or genetics. They should have been more careful, and Pearl should have done something the moment Marina started acting differently.
Instead, Marina spent the last of her years with Pearl waking up and only sometimes recognizing her wife’s face and voice.
There was something torturous about watching that disease eat away at such a brilliant mind, at what fundamentally made Marina who she was. Pearl stayed loyal up until the very end and did whatever she could to take care of her, even on days where Marina would fight back, asking with fear in her voice who she was.
So what was Pearl supposed to say to these people? That Marina was the smartest and most loving person she knew? That she changed lives? That she was beautiful and had an even more beautiful laugh?
Once upon a time Marina breathed new life into her lungs, and for the years where many of these people had no clue, Pearl was trying so hard to return the favour.
And when she failed, the guilt just grew and grew and grew.
And that’s how she ended up ditching her own wife’s funeral. Because none of it really meant anything, anyway.
Her joints didn’t work like they used to, but somehow she found herself on top of Mount Nantai anyway, standing in the now overgrown clearing where she had both met and married Marina.
Met would be burying the lede a little bit, because Marina had in fact physically crashed into her. Pearl thought back to when that had happened. Luck had never struck her like it did then, when she reached her hand out to help that girl off the ground. If Pearl’s old band had chosen any other day to kick her out, she might have missed the best thing that ever happened to her.
”Shit, um…” Pearl points at herself. “Pearl. Me.”
“Pearl.” The girl says, testing the name on her tongue. It sounds a little different with her accent, but the pronunciation is there.
“Yes! And you?” Pearl says ecstatically, pointing at her.
She raises her hand and points at herself and looks up with a questioning expression, and Pearl nods. “Marina.”
She wished she could talk to the Marina she knew, just one more time. Just to see what she would have to say. Pearl never really got a goodbye from Marina, because she was too far gone when her hearts finally gave out on her. There were moments where she was lucid enough to have conversations with, but Pearl never knew what conversation was going to be the last.
And then she just cried. For the first time since she felt her wife’s cold hand in hers, she cried. It’s loud, and ugly, and gutting, as she falls to her knees. Years of pain and anguish rushed out of her system as she begged the sky to bring her love home to her, to tell her it was all an elaborate prank, or a bad dream. And if she tried hard enough, she’d wake up and be twenty two years old again as she felt Marina’s lips against hers for the first time, or thirty years old as she held Marina in her arms for the first time as her wife.
Instead, the world around her fell silent again, and Pearl was still seventy.
”Who are you?” Marina asks in Octarian. “What time is it? I should be reporting for duty soon.”
“I’m Pearl, ‘Rina. I’m your wife.” Pearl responds, her expression falling. “You’re sixty five years old, you haven’t been in the military for decades.”
“What are you talking about?” Marina says, her brows furrowing as she looks down. “I—I have to get up. Where’s my gear?”
Pearl places a hand on Marina’s shoulder. “No, you can’t.”
“Please unhand me.” Marina asks firmly, and Pearl’s jaw clenches as her eyes start to burn.
Marina chose to die during the cold season, and as the day became more like the night, Pearl wrapped her arms around herself, still finding herself unable to get up and go home. Because when she goes home, it will be empty.
She didn’t know how long she’d been up here when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and when she turned around she almost thought she saw Marina. But instead it was just Eight, who, looking so much like Marina, had come to take her home.
“Come on.” She says, her voice quiet and stoic.
“No.” Pearl responds, her voice hoarse.
“Pearl, you cannot stay out here…” The octoling says.
“I can, and I will.” She says. “I can’t leave her.”
Eight sighs. “She is not here.”
“Yes, she is.” Pearl says, not bothering to elaborate.
Eight is angry now. “You are not the only one who lost her, Pearl.”
Pearl is silent.
“Please come home.”
And then Pearl is crying again. It’s less ugly this time; instead it’s quiet sobs and shaking shoulders.
“I loved her Eight.” She sobs. “I really really loved her. And I tried. So hard.”
“I know.” Eight says, touching Pearl’s shoulder in support.
“Did she?” Pearl asks, covering her eyes with her hand. “In the end. Did she know?”
Eight doesn’t know how to answer.
Pearl perks up as she hears a small grunt from Marina in the bed in front of her. She watches as her tentacles slowly come to life, and then teal and salmon eyes are opening slowly. Pearl slips Marina’s hand into both of hers, rubbing it softly.
“Pearl?” She says quietly.
“Baby?” Pearl responds, her voice shaking as her body immediately reacts to her wife recognizing her.
“Hi.” She says.
Pearl lets out a sob and pulls Marina’s hand up to her lips, pressing them against it for an extending period of time. She lets her tears freely stream down her face, her body shaking with silent cries.
“Why are you crying, honey?” Marina asks, her brows furrowing.
“Oh, I…” Pearl says, her words muffled by Marina’s skin. “I just really love you.”
Marina’s eyes fall, and then she’s breaking from Pearl’s grasp so she can cup the side of the inkling’s face with her palm. “I love you too.” She says, wiping the tears away with her thumb. It does nothing to calm Pearl, though. In fact it basically makes her worse, her sobs progressing to the point of being audible. “Come closer.” Marina says, and Pearl practically gravitates towards her, scooting her chair closer to the head of the bed and leaning over her body.
“I’m here, baby.”
Marina is silent at first, and then her gaze is flicking away from Pearl before returning. “I’m really sick, aren’t I?”
Pearl couldn’t lie to her if she tried. She never really could, but the crying mess she dissolves into makes it impossible. She just nods. “I miss you so much.”
Marina looks sad now. “I’m so sorry.” She says, as if her illness is a moral failing.
Pearl shakes her head, letting out a wet laugh. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
And yet, Marina is grunting as she puts all her strength into propping herself up on her forearm as she pulls Pearl’s face in. When their lips meet, it’s Pearl’s breaking point. Marina’s lips are dry and cracked, but there’s still nowhere else she would rather be.
The universe’s second most cruelest joke on Pearl is that she lived a long healthy life after Marina. Where Marina suffered the cruel fate of losing every part of herself before leaving this world, Pearl would live on for another twenty or so years with her memory perfectly intact.
Maybe it was so somebody was holding onto the memories of Marina that nobody else knew about. With or without Pearl she would always have a legacy, but without Pearl nobody would know how great of a lover she always was, or of the conversations they had with each other in the middle of the night.
Twenty years is a long time to live, though. Life was irrevocably never the same as it was with Marina by her side, and in her worst moments Pearl thought that a person like Marina doesn’t deserve to be moved on from. That someone as catalytic as her should be mourned forever. But one day Pearl realized that her late wife wouldn’t have ever wanted her to suffer so much. A realization wasn’t enough to fix things, but it was a start.
Some days were worse than others. There were days where Pearl woke up with the crushing weight of despair that Marina wasn’t in bed with her, limbs wrapped tightly around her body. It didn’t help that she would spend the whole night dreaming of her, only to wake up and have her torn out of her grasp all over again. Those days were the hardest. They were usually the ones where Pearl would find herself cracking open the door to Marina’s old workshop, running her fingers along unfinished projects and digging out the pages and pages of her notes, just so she could trace the strokes of her handwriting with her fingertip.
She wished she could understand them all. The diagrams and the equations. It had always felt like another language to her, and she wished she had learned it like she had learned Marina’s native tongue. Because standing there, looking at them, Pearl felt a barrier between them.
On those days, she also found herself in the home theater rewatching Off the Hook’s old performances, and the home videos Pearl thanked herself profusely for bothering to take. Sometimes she would get scared that she was going to forget what Marina sounds like. It wasn’t like her voice was scarce to come by, with the sheer amount of music and interviews they put out as a band over the years, but there was always something a bit different about the way she spoke in the moments where it was just the two of them.
”What are you doing?” Marina asks, grinning slightly as she puts her tools down.
“Recordin’ you.”
“I can see that.” The octoling chuckles. “But why with that old thing?”
The camera frame shakes as Pearl shrugs. “For the vibessss. Phone videos just don’t hit the same, y’feel me?”
“You’re silly.”
“Yeah, but you love me.” Pearl responds.
“I do.” Marina says tenderly.
The camera shakes again as Pearl sets it down on the table. Then Pearl herself is in the frame as she waltzes up to her wife, and Marina’s arms are immediately draping over her shoulders. She leans down at the same time as Pearl tilts her head up, and their lips meet in a sweet kiss.
But when she watches the home videos, where Marina is so full of life with so much love in her eyes, her voice sounds like an unforgettable home.
On the better days, Pearl tries not to isolate herself. Eight was right, back on Mount Nantai, that she wasn’t the only one who lost Marina. Eight herself was never really the same after it all, either. She always viewed Marina as her lifeline when she was young, and even in her older age the loss made her feel a little lost. Pearl could never replace Marina; could never fill such big shoes—figuratively and literally—but Eight was still like family to her.
And either way, life did have to go on. Three’s health complications worsened with their age, leaving them unable to walk on their own most of the time. Pearl wanted to be there for the both of them as their lives started to change too, no matter how much she was hurting.
It didn’t surprise her, no matter how undeserving she felt at times, that community made her feel a little better. Marie would come by sometimes, and other times Callie would too. More than anything Pearl didn’t want Marina to become a forbidden topic anyone had to tip-toe around with her. She wanted her to be cherished until the end of time. It was a promise Pearl had made to her once. Maybe they couldn’t rock the mic together until the end of time, but Pearl would not allow for her to be forgotten. Telling stories and reminiscing on good times placed the most bittersweet pain in Pearl’s chest. It hurt to talk about her, but at the same time it warmed her hearts that so many other people loved her wife too.
Some days, very rarely, Pearl was just angry at Marina. It was unfair to her, and completely irrational, but she was angry that Marina could be taken down by that disease. They had agreed they were going to grow old and decrepit together. Still in love and annoying as ever, together in their nursing home. They had shook on it, jokingly, in bed once, and sometimes Pearl couldn’t help but be mad that Marina didn’t hold up her end of the deal.
She understood that healing was never linear. Especially for something like this. But when she was in the thick of it, in so much pain that she felt like she could die from heartbreak, she couldn’t see how it was something she could ever heal from.
But still, things got better. Five years after Marina’s departure, Pearl put a sum of money towards something simple that could memorialize her. It came in the form of a bench, placed in that clearing on Mount Nantai. On top of that she paid for a crew to clean up the area, making it as beautiful as it once was.
The day the bench was implemented, Pearl and Marie went to visit it. The small plaque in the middle of the backrest was silver, as Pearl had made sure it matched Marina’s go-to jewelry choice.
For my sweet ‘Rina. Wherever you are I know you’re shining as bright as the star you always were. 1999 - 2066
“It’s a nice bench.” Marie says.
“I know.”
“She’s probably up there doting all over you for doing this, or something.” She says, and there’s a slight tremor in her voice.
Pearl feels her eyes burn. “Heh. Yeah.”
“I miss her too.” Marie sniffs, and then wraps her arm around Pearl’s shoulder, sensing she needs some comfort. “I’m sorry Callie couldn’t make it. She sends her regards.”
“It’s alright.” Pearl responds.
Ten years after Marina’s death, a popular award show reaches out to Pearl, looking to posthumously give her what they called a Lifetime Award. Reserved for an individual in the music industry that came by once in a lifetime. Her and Marina had collected numerous awards from them throughout their career, but this one felt different. She knew they were just statues that didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of it all, they always were, but it was the intent of commemoration that made her think twice. They wanted Pearl to be the one to accept it on her behalf. And she couldn’t say no, of course.
They asked her to sing a number too, in tribute. This gave Pearl pause, because she hadn’t sung much at all in the past decade. Sometimes it made her feel guilty, because it’s one of those things that Marina wouldn’t have wanted her to give up, but she couldn’t help how incomplete she felt doing it without her.
And yet, she said yes.
So, for the first time in fifteen or so years, Pearl made a public appearance for a performance. The company had been gracious enough to give her full creative reign on song choice and performance, and though she and Marina made lots of other hits over the years, the song she landed on, without question, was Ebb and Flow.
The award was about Marina, after all. Not her. And Marina had written almost the entirety of that song. And it was such a beautiful song that brought them together in the first place and catapulted Marina into the limelight. It was perfect.
It needed some adjustments, of course. Pearl had just hit her eighties, and bouncing around on the stage like she used to was completely out of the question. And she found it didn’t quite match the vibe she was going for. So, she dusted off her old acoustic guitar, and sat herself down on a stool in the middle of a big empty stage.
And the people listened. It was a beautiful performance. For the first time since Marina’s death, Pearl had allowed her iconic pink ink to flow through her tentacles. For some reason it had never felt right having it when Marina wasn’t around to compliment her with her own teal or deep blue. But as she performed, fingers slowly strumming the strings of her guitar, it felt like Marina was up there with her.
Pearl lets out a yelp as Marina crashes into her arms, her own wrapping tightly around her body.
“That was incredible!” She claims, her voice muffled by Pearl’s tentacles.
When Marina pulls back, she’s jittery and full of energy from the performance, her tentacles squirming along with her mood. Pearl thinks it’s adorable.
“Hell yeah, it was!” Pearl grins. “And this is just the beginning, you feel me? If you think the people love us now, just think of what it’ll be like when the whole world catches onto our sick beats.”
Pearl holds her fist up, knuckles facing Marina. “You and me are gonna make it big.” She says, and Marina smiles back, raising her own fist and bumping them together.
Pearl continued to wake up every day just as in love with Marina as she always was. She found, as time went by, that fortunately enough moving on from the death of her wife didn’t remove the deep seated love that she always felt for her. She never dated again, of course. She was already a little too old by principle, but the gold wedding band never left her ring finger either, and Marina’s silver band still hung on a chain around her neck. There was no room for anyone else. Marina was her one and only, even fifteen years later.
The habit of sneaking into Marina’s workshop when she felt lonely never ceased for as long as she lived in that house, and one day she wondered if she should do something with all that stuff. For years she had clung to these notes and pieces of technology like it was what she had left of Marina, but as she read over the notes, she wondered if she’d been hiding away things that could’ve been helping people.
Besides, Marina lived on in her and everyone else’s memories.
Though that stuff was worked on last about two decades ago, the advancement of technology had largely plateaued, and Marina was always ahead of her time anyway. After numerous phone calls, she was able to find some places, largely university funded labs, to donate Marina’s work to. Filling Marina’s shoes still felt impossible, but part of her felt like it was something her wife would have wanted her to do. Instead of collecting dust in their big old house, her work could be continued by some of the greatest minds behind her.
In addition to that, Pearl decided that she would rid herself of most of the money she possessed. Most of it went to promising organizations that needed funding to research ways to prevent others from suffering the same fate as Marina. Her father’s entire fortune, and then most of her and Marina’s went straight into their pockets as an anonymous donation, giving them enough funding for hundreds of researchers for at least two lifetimes.
It coincided nicely with the fact that Pearl didn’t get to live in that house much longer after that before her body started to really slow down. The house was too big for her, and there were too many stairs. It led her to her next hard decision, which was to give up the home she and Marina spent their entire lives living in.
Downsizing was harder than she imagined it to be. She decided on moving to a smaller, single floor house, which meant that not all of her and Marina’s belongings would fit in it. She wouldn’t lie and say tears weren’t shed when she relinquished what she considered to be the least important things that belonged to Marina. But, repeated like a mantra, she told herself that they were just things. That Marina’s soul was what mattered, and she still held it closely in her chest.
Pearl wasn’t sure if healing was a process that ever ended. Because some days she still felt so much hurt and loneliness. Especially in her old age, she wished Marina could have been by her side. She still saw the friends she had, but sometimes she just wanted to kiss her wife and hold her in her arms, just one more time.
She saw Marie more than anyone else, surprisingly. The lighthearted bickering of their early adulthood had served as the basis for a lifelong friendship where they always supported each other. One of the times Marie had visited, she asked Pearl if it ever gets easier. Her lidded eyes and deep frown made Pearl ache inside, but she always told herself she would say things the way they are. So she told her it would take time. Time, and then more time. And then, when you think you’re free, it will come back. And you can only learn to live with it, but never really be without it.
Pearl has never been religious or superstitious, but, after twenty long years, in her dying old age, she wonders if Marina’s ghost has been haunting her this whole time. Just waiting for her love to join her. She wants to believe in the afterlife now, in fact she thinks she’ll believe in just about anything that gets her to see the light of her life outside of her dreams, after all this time.
When Pearl Houzuki dies, the world stops.
But, as her heart monitor slows to a flatline, she’s smiling.