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1
The first thing Pearl noticed was that her pillow was wet. Her throat felt tight, the room around her was blurry, she couldn't get enough air; but a warm fluffy head rested on her stomach so she ran her hand through Tilly's fur, soothing strokes that settled her gasping breaths into something that actually let the oxygen into her lungs.
"Pearl? Are you alright?" the voice made something tight and heavy unravel in her chest and as she wiped away the tears the voice and face accompanying it came into sure focus. For a brief moment she couldn't tell who it was, then her mind kicked into gear and it was like coming home:
"Scott!" A smile stretched wide across her face as she wiped away the last few tears and Tilly's tail thudded against the bed and she let out a heavy woof, just as happy to see him as her owner was. Something was strange about his voice, something slightly off in the mannerisms? Maybe he was just tired, or worried. Yeah, that sounded right.
As Pearl sat up and looked around the room. Something felt… odd, it was Scott's house- both of their house? Where was her tower? Why was she here?
"I'm glad you're awake, you had me worried for a bit there, did you have a nightmare?"
A nightmare? That would explain the tears, "I think so- I must've, I don't remember…"
"Up you get then, I made breakfast! We'll need to head out early this morning, cows to breed, sheep to shear, you know,"
Scott spoke so casually, his hand in hers as she followed—confused, comforted—through the small house.
"I need to go to my tower, there's- I left iron in the furnaces,"
"Tower? What tower? That nightmare must've been a bad one for you to be so confused…" his eyebrows furrowed, concerned as he raised a hand to her forehead, "Do you have a fever?"
If anything she felt cold, she couldn't stop shivering, but he looked so worried that she couldn't bear to move away, couldn't tear herself away from him- it felt like they'd been orbiting one another from afar, two stars trapped far enough to be cold, lit by the other only half-heartedly, unable to cut the line and spin into the abyss, hoping the spiral would draw them closer so they could finally collide again.
The smile settled more assuredly back on her face as she brushed his hand away from her forehead--wasn't it nice that they were back together finally?--suddenly certain that she didn't want him worrying over something as silly as if she had a fever. She did give his other hand a squeeze as Tilly wove between their feet to curl up on some soft looking carpet by the fireplace—had Scott's house always had a fireplace?—and Pearl looked around the kitchen.
All around were signs of a shared life, a shared home. Tools left by the door to share, chests organized with item frames, windows looking over the valley—wasn't Martyn's house supposed to be hanging there over the water? He must've just taken it down is all, good riddance—and flowers in the boxes. A handful of chairs sat around a small table laid out with breakfast just as she liked.
Her heart clenched in her chest and a wave of nausea inducing wrongness came over her, settling like frost on the grass.
"You're not going to pass out again, are you? I spent so long on breakfast," Scott drawled, shaking his head. Guilt churned in her stomach until Pearl saw the fond smile on his face. She managed a laugh she hoped sounded genuine. She took a seat.
The food was perfect, but it didn't taste how she remembered it.
Scott talked as she ate and with every mentioned name her throat seemed to close a little more, making that flawless food harder to swallow. 'Cleo was doing such and such' An axe in their back. 'Jimmy wanted to find such and such and he was going to give them some' The ender screech echoed in her ears. 'Scar had those Jellie pandas he just wouldn't shut up about' Statement of how he died here.
They were all still here, it seemed. She lived here with Scott, they were close again. Nobody was dead. No blood, no cold, no tower. It was perfect.
A ray of sunlight illuminated the dust mites in the air and Pearl was struck by how much they looked like snowflakes.
Scott's smile was blinding, he didn't take his eyes off her. This was… perfect, she almost wanted to cry again; and if her friend's smile didn't reach his eyes and she missed the burned spots on the eggs then no. No she didn't. This was real and it was perfect. She'd just had some really bad nightmare is all. She had to believe that, because what did she have to go back to if that was the real world, not this one? Could she remember? Did she care?
2
'It was nice, to see them all again.' Pearl thought as she strolled back towards Scott's- towards her house. Grian's hair had been slightly more blond than she'd remembered, she'd forgotten about Bigb's sunglasses, and she really must be a bad friend if she'd thought Martyn's headband was black not green. It was close enough.
It was better, they all looked better than ever, they all looked perfect.
Even better, Scott hadn't said anything even remotely weird since that morning she'd had a nightmare! It was wonderful, they were friends again! When had they stopped being friends? He'd been kind and silly and they'd done everything together. It was perfect.
"Pearl! Hi!!" Scott called down from a new structure that had cropped up beside his their home and Pearl's heart skipped a beat.
He'd built her tower. Perfectly. Somehow. Her hoodie was black, not red, she was safe. She felt cold all of a sudden, despite the sun. She was running—when had she started running?—up the paths so close to the ones she remembered from the other version of this place; they looked nicer, cleaner: perfect. She kept tripping.
"Scott?! What did you do??"
He swung down, leaping from the balcony to the top of the chimney—which he'd only added after she mentioned the dangers of having a fire without one—to the roof, skidding down to hop cleanly perfectly down to the ground in front of her, not even a speck of dirt on his blue shirt. The bottoms of her jeans were caked in mud.
"You were thrown off by not having a tower, so I built you one!"
He slipped his hand into hers and they fit together like they were made to as he turned to look up at his work, head tilted slightly, eyes narrowed, faint hint of disgust in the curl of his lips. Pearl felt her chest constrict again, the irrational (definitely irrational) fear of being judged seeping into her nerves, filling her with a jittery energy akin to a rabbit floundering in the snow just a little too loud.
His hand warmed hers, but maybe she really did have a fever as he kept suggesting because the rest of her body felt like it was covered in ice.
"It's not my best work." Like a knife to her heart.
"Hey- I quite like it!" Too quick to defend. Would he realize this world wasn't real? What? No. It was real, and it was perfect. That nightmare she couldn't remember was just… sticking with her for some reason.
"Really? It's pretty wonky, I mean look at the supports! The colour scheme is, fine I guess, and there's only really enough space for one person to be comfortable up there."
Now that he mentioned it… It really wasn't that good a tower, why did she care so much about it? He was the one who'd built it, even if it was uncomfortably similar to. Something. Something that made loneliness curl around her heart like thorns around a tower.
"I could… rebuild it? Make it-" she almost said make it 'perfect', but it caught in her throat like a knife, "-make it better?"
"Oh would you? Perfect! You're such a good builder, I'm sure you can make this not look," he gestured at it vaguely, "like that, can't you? You can't mess that up right? It's so easy to make something look better than that hot mess and I did build the actual house and the farms, so it's the least you can do" his laugh was warm like her home looking ugly was a joke they shared. Scott wouldn't do that if he knew she cared about it that much. He wouldn't.
He was still holding her hand. His hair was the wrong shade of blue.
She liked building, and the tower really didn't fit with the cute cottage. He was right, and she didn't want her tower—was it their tower now? It would be rude to—to be the one ugly scar on this perfect landscape.
3
Pearl actually felt quite satisfied as she returned to His (He was Scott, of course, it was just Scott.), no, their shared house late one evening; her pockets were full of ores, stones, even a few prizes from dungeons! She hadn't gotten the chance to tell Him where she was going this morning, but that was fine, He didn't need to know where she was every second of the day and it wasn't like she'd be going far.
"Oh Scottttt!" She called out in a sing-song voice, kicking off grubby iron boots—she didn't want to track mud into the perfectly clean house, after all…—and He was sat there, in the kitchen, his back to her, silent.
"Scott? Wh-what are you doin, mate? Is that breakfast? It's a bit late for that, don't ya think?"
He stood. The silence built as though each rushing beat of Pearl's heart ticked up the pressure another notch higher, her chest tight. His eyes were wrong; they reflected the lantern light like a wild animal's might, yellowed and cold.
No. No no no. No this was him, this was him and everyone was alive and everything was perfect. Her eyes screwed closed, her breathing quickened. The room felt cold, so so so cold. It felt like a pressure in her chest and over her head and she couldn't breathe and the blood in her veins was freezing to sludge and this wasn't real it was perfect, it was perfect.
It was perfect.
It was perfect.
It had to be perfect.
It-
A warm hand cupped her face. She peeled her eyes open and He was right in front of her. He looked perfect, perfectly real, perfectly concerned, perfectly genuine. His eyes were still not right. Still as cold as ice, as powdered snow, so cold they burned. The real Scott would never do this, would never look like this, would never say something like this.
"I was just worried about you, I had no idea where you were, I felt so sick I couldn't eat, I couldn't do anything, half the server is out looking for you!"
That couldn't be right. She'd said hi to several people as she went into the caves and returned home. No, no they'd have said something.
"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? I need to know where you are, I need to know every second of every day so I can protect you,"
His words hit like a slap to the face. No, no Scott knew she liked to wander off, even if they didn't agree about her safety sometimes he… he trusted her, and anyway they had their soulmate bond so if she did get in trouble he'd know! It wasn't like she'd left him clueless!
"Come on, not- not every second, I was just out mining! I got us enough diamonds for some armour, tools, probably a sword too!"
This wasn't Scott. Not in a 'he was acting weird but that's literally him' way. This wasn't her friend. It wasn't the same person.
But it had to be. If it wasn't him then this place wasn't real and everyone was dead and he'd actually- grief, sudden and violent, choked her and she fell forward into His waiting arms. It felt just the same. Scott had sacrificed- NO. No this was Scott. Scott who held her as she cried, irrationally, even though everything was perfect. Cleo and Martyn and everyone else they were all alive and happy. She was alive and happy. He was alive and happy.
He cradled her gently as he took her to her room in His house. She wanted to be in the tower, alone, safe, not cold but the tower wasn't hers anymore, she'd rebuilt it so it was cleaner, less haphazard and panicked and she'd sanded down the rough edges until it felt perfect.
She didn't feel perfect, but maybe—just maybe—if He kept holding her and whispering comforting words that she couldn't hear then she'd feel perfect tomorrow. This world was full of ores and resources and animals, full of her friends, full of life and it was perfect.
It had to be perfect.
4
Pearl woke up crying again.
He was there, holding her hand, laying in bed beside her, a comforting presence that wasn't nearly as warm as it should be but was at least there.
His hair was the wrong shade of blue—far too pale, more like frost. His eyes were wrong too. She felt claws on his hand holding hers but couldn't bear to look at where their hands were linked between them.
She was cold.
She knew this cold; it was the shivering, vindictive, self-inflicted cold of settling down in powdered snow out of spite and pain and a need to feel something even if it was just cold so intense it burned. She wasn't under any blankets but somehow doubted it would at all help. Scott liked to steal them anyway, He was probably the same.
They both knew the game was over.
She hoped they did.
Whatever this game was.
She couldn't fight Him, His face was too close to Scott's for her to be able to stomach it.
Maybe He could be reasoned with; He acted like Scott (most of the time.) so maybe He'd listen to logic?
"I have to go."
"Hmm, no. No I don't think you do," The face fully shifted away from Scott's to something primal, something inhuman, just for a moment but then it was Him again. Not quite the real Scott; too symmetrical, Pearl realized with a jolt, He was too perfect.
"You wouldn't want to leave me again, would you Pearl?" The voice sounded real. The pout and tilt of his head looked real. She wanted it to be real, but his words stung like falling through a frozen lake.
"You wouldn't want to forget about me again, why would you go build your little tower in the woods, live with your mutts in the cold when you could stay here with me," His smile had fangs, perfect sharp shapes that didn't fit.
Pearl was cold.
"I died, you know, a brave and selfless sacrifice for you, or at least, he died. I'm just wearing his shape for a bit."
Pearl's breath was clouding the air in front of her.
"You know how hard it was to get a meal? I had to wait for everyone to split off and die, to even have a chance, and you were the last one standing. I made this perfect world that you could've never left, lived here forever with your precious Scott, and all the others who you thought you cared about, but since you're so insistent on failure, do you know where you really are? You aren't in bed, that's for sure."
Pearl wanted to shake her head but everything hurt, everything was cold and burned and smelled like gunpowder and and blood.
"You're laying in a patch of powdered snow, just a few blocks from him," He lifted a hand to cup her face and grinned, a bitter and self-satisfied expression that looked so fundamentally wrong on Scott's face she could hardly bear it, but she kept looking. If she'd seen the signs earlier… if she hadn't ignored the flaws because she'd wanted so badly for it to be real. "You're not dead, not even dying really, but I want to change that, send you to him, a gift for such a wonderful meal."
She wasn't dead.
Pearl's heart picked up speed again, this time a stubborn adrenaline-fuelled fight against an end that had felt inevitable. She was alive, and more importantly hadn't dropped any of her stuff after mining yesterday which meant- yes her sword lay within reach at her side.
The shape-shifter ran a clawed hand along her cheekbone, soft and kind and in that moment Pearl wanted to give up but she didn't. The leather grip was cool but not cold in her hand, the diamond blade shone in the pale light and Pearl drove it into Scott's- into the monster's stomach and twisted. Her whole body screamed as she shoved it back, ignoring it's scream that sounded so much like Scott's, and ran past Tilly, past the kitchen, past the chests and the flower boxes and the windows overlooking the valley and out the door and-
Her arms scrambled against the soft powdered snow as she pulled and clawed and dragged herself free of it, shaking on her hands and knees, not even bothering to try and zip up her blood red hoodie. She was alive. Back in the real server- it was flawed and it was broken and it was burned and frozen and blown up and she was alive.
And Scott was not.
And she was alone.
And she was still cold.