Work Text:
Pearl
When she stood at that door, her body felt jittery.
Well, I did say goodbye pretty aggressively, now didn’t I?
Be that as it may, it didn’t explain why she felt frozen here.
Her wings were still rustling from the force she’d put into them, pouring on the speed as she’d climbed upward through the newly reopened rift, her eyes seeking the familiar pathways of redstone circuitry and cabling that slithered down below to where she had been for three long months.
Felt so helpless for three long months.
I said goodbye.
And what had the sky said in return to her?
Pearl slammed her hand down into the latch of the door and let glamor pulse from her fingers. The pattern unlocked it with a series of clicks.
Again, she found herself just standing there.
Took a deep, shuddering inhale.
What did you say to me?
The sky, the sky, and her own longstanding love affair with the freedom of pounding pavement beneath endless blue.
Belatedly, she folded her wings up tight, into a coil of raven black along her spine, and untied her favorite red oversized zip hoodie from around her waist.
As she slid her arms into the familiar overlong sleeves and pushed them back to the elbows, her mind tried to wander.
Pressure.
Race.
Had to face a lot down there…about where I am, what I want, what I need to be…
What she wanted to see each day.
The toughest of the three?
Nah.
She just kept it together better than most.
Pearl zipped her hoodie halfway up and then shoved the door open.
Breathed in deep.
“Ahhhh!” She let out a high keening cry of relief, glamor erasing the two sets of raven black wings from her temples as she stepped out into the alleyway.
It was deserted, and it was the smallest hours of morning, right now.
Pearl looked up and saw a sky full of stars.
The moon greeted her, gorgeous in it’s reflective brilliance in the dark, above where she stood in the back of a dead end alley.
“Hello there, old friend.” Pearl whispered, her dark eyes trailing up.
Up, up, up.
The over-city isn’t gettin’ any nicer…but I already knew that way before any of this happened.
And even still.
Yes, even still, her eyes prickled with tears, and her lips wobbled a little as she pressed them together and fiddled with the sleeves of her jacket. Emotion felt like it was wringing it's way along her ribcage, dancing across the weight that had been tearing her down for months and replacing it with the light of the stars.
The stars, the stars.
There had never been another way for her, not really. Not if she wanted to feel this all-consuming sense of freedom.
So yes.
She’d choose it. This place where she could follow her feet pounding pavement, be free with each breath of brilliant brightness to her lungs.
Love with each mouthful of fresh air.
Wonder with each wandering foodfall.
Pearl felt a grin tugging up at her cheeks as she got a hold of the edges of the hood of her jacket and flipped it up over her head, nestling her tiny wings, now unseen, beneath it. She then laced her fingers together and settled them behind her head, stretching back and adjusting the strap of her duffel over her shoulder.
Then, she started her trot back home, a nonsensical hum on her lips that she liked to think the moon would enjoy singing along to.