Chapter Text
This.
This, is hell.
She thought she knew what hell was before, having just been the winner of one of the worst Death Games of her life, but this? The Death Games were nothing compared to what she is currently going through.
Pearl...is sick.
And not the basic sniffly sneezy nose, drained but able to move, common cold she normally gets.
No.
This is worse.
Much. Worse.
This is hacking your lungs out, fever and chills combo double stacked with congestion so bad that not even half a nostril is working. This is migraines and weakness and dizzy spells so bad she could barely sit up without falling over. This is throat full of razor blades that nothing, not even honey, could soothe.
And this...
This is all Pearl’s fault.
If she had just taken better care of her wings during the Games, if she had just sucked it up and not let her feelings overwhelm her, if she had just forced her way through preening, panic attacks be damned...she wouldn't be in this mess.
Pearl wouldn’t be here, a few days out of the Games, going through absolute hell.
She would be on the Hermitcraft server working on her base or hanging out with her friends, or working on her single-player world, or be playing and bonding with her brothers. She would be flying through the skies, wings dark as the void spread wide, feathers catching the air currents. She would be laughing and feeling like she was on cloud nine.
Instead...
Instead she’s cooped up in a dimly lit room, buried in her blankets, drowning in sweat, body sore and throat raw. She’s cold as ice but also hotter than a furnace, and she can’t stop shaking. Her wings are useless, laying limp being her under the covers, irritated and filthy.
They’re bad...her wings...probably the worst they’ve ever been, and they’re not going to get any better if she doesn’t do something to fix them.
But what can she even do?
She can barely sit up without keeling over and even if she managed it, moving hurt too much and her wings are far too fragile for her shaking hands.
She needs help.
Pearl looks out from the mound of blankets covering her to the communication device on the nightstand.
She doesn’t want to ask for help, but she needs to, she has to. She can’t do this on her own.
But there’s not many she could call on to help, only a select few. One she knows wouldn’t judge her and would be as gentle as possible. Another would help, but not without lecturing her and making her feel worse. And two others who she really hasn’t talked much with outside the Games but both are still family and know how to care for wings.
The first two are probably the most suited to help her, seeing as they have wings of their own.
She stares for a minute, maybe two, then reaches out. Her arm trembles with the effort. Her comms feels a hundred meters away but after an eternity of stretching, her fingertips brush the edge of the device.
It wobbles away from her fingers and she stretches more, nudging it again. With more effort than necessary were she not sick, she hooks her fingers onto the device and starts dragging it closer.
The metal scrapes against the wood of her nightstand and it’s like nails on a chalkboard in the silence of her room, but still, she keeps pulling.
Her arm trembles like a leaf in the wind, and her shoulder is starting to ache from holding it up so long, but the comms is close. Just a little more, just a few more inches, and she’ll have it.
The comms wobble in her fingers and drops from the edge of the nightstand. It bounces onto the bed and before she can stop it, it immediately rolls over the side.
There’s a considerably loud thunk from beyond the edge of her bed and she winces as the sound pierces her ears.
She curses her weak body and struggles her way closer to the edge of the bed. It takes great effort and another layer of sweat, but she forces her way through the weakness and the on-coming dizzy spell, and looks over the edge.
The comms is right there on the floor, right within reach.
She reaches out to it again, grunting with the effort, and manages once again to brush her fingertips along the edge. But unlike before, after struggling to grab it, the device wobbles away from her hand and just out of reach.
She melts against the side of her bed, panting and arm dangling bonelessly.
She can’t reach it.
Any further and she’ll be on the floor. And if she ends up there, then there’s no way she’d be able to pull herself back up. It was already difficult enough last night when she had to drag herself to the bathroom, and in the state she’s in? There’s no way.
What can she do now?
Pearl pulls her arm back under the covers where it’s only mildly warmer than the air in the room, and she shivers.
Jimmy...Grian... she thinks, her eyes stinging and her vision blurring. She can’t call them now to help her.
I’m going to get worse... she thinks and her heart constricts. I’m...I’m going to die here...
The thought sends her over and the tears she’s barely holding back fall. She clutches her blankets in shaking hands and thinks of her brothers.