~Sausage~

I watched as everyone dispersed from the central meeting point.

Scott, Erin, Katherine and Joey had flown off, Joey muttering curses and threats underneath his breath as he went. Jimmy and Lizzie had disappeared into the river. Joel and Shrub had ridden off, and I did a double take when I saw Joel mounting a horse.

Soon, only me Gem and Fwhip remained in the clearing.

"Will you two be able to make it back alright?" I asked, watching as Gem sat beside Fwhip who had propped himself up against one of the stumps surrounding the dead campfire.

"I think so." Gem replied, her new dragonling slithering up and around her shoulders as she spoke. "I have somewhere we can go that'll hopefully be safe from the earthquakes..."

"I'm an idiot." Fwhip mumbled, rubbing his face with his hands in a futile attempt to wipe the soot off of it.

"Fwhip you're not..." Gem began, trailing off. She wore a look of pity, one mixed with concern and slight fear. "Everything will be okay, we'll fix it."

"How do we fix this?" Fwhip asked, practically taking the words right out of my mouth.

Gem opened her own mouth to speak, before closing it and opening it again with a sigh. "We'll...we'll figure it out. But now, I need to bring you back and make sure you're okay."

Fwhip mumbled a response I didn't manage to catch, but honestly at the moment my mind was on other things.

I hoped Pearl's silence was simply a loss of her communicater and not something... graver.

I hardly noticed as the siblings got to their feet, Fwhip wobbling the slightest before leaning into his sister for support. "We'll see you back here then?" He asked.

I nodded absentmindedly, before snapping out of the spot my eyes had zoned out on while watching. "Yes– yes I will. Good luck."

"Don't say it like that–" Gem said quickly. "Don't say it like– like goodbye– it's not." She breathed out slowly. "Everyone will gather back here in a few days. Everyone. Like always. It'll be like nothing happened."

I could tell she was in denial about the situation, it was obvious. "I told you something bad was going to happen." I said just under my breath, too low for either her or Fwhip to hear. "You should have listened."

"What was that?" Fwhip asked, raising an eyebrow in questioning.

"Nothing...just...I'll see you two at the meeting." I said, trying to put on as much confidence as I could. Cheerful, optimistic me. Wear the mask Sausage, just for a little longer.

"Be careful. Be safe." Gem said, taking the amulet from around her neck, the chain lengthening as she did so to form her iconic staff, the purple crystal pulsing faintly.

I nodded. "You too." I replied, my hand tightening around my own staff.

Gem's eyes flicked down at it for just a moment, before she turned with her brother and they both disappeared into the woods, the wizard using her staff like a walking stick.

I'd see them again.

I had to.

Once their flaming red hair had disappeared into the greenery, I was finally left alone in the clearing. Despite the constant quakes, it was strangely peaceful...yet eerie at the same time. No sounds echoed from the woods, no wildlife. It was dead silent.

What a splendid omen.

I gazed over the clearing one last time, taking in the green of the leaves and shrubbery and the orange of the sky, before I locked my eyes on the ground.

Keeping my hands wrapped tightly around the grip of my staff, I exhaled slowly, before rapping the tip sharply against the dirt.

As if needles had shot from my skin and had begun stabbing into my limps, a sensation similar to prickling erupted along my arms, torso and legs. Then, a sound like a violent wind ripping through the clearing exploded in my ears. For a moment I couldn't breathe, my eyes screwed tightly shut, like my lungs and chest were being compressed into one. I pictured Mythland, the streets of Black Dawn City, cobbled and bustling, the elegant houses lining the streets...

Like I was being tossed into the air, I had lost all sense of direction, the floor was gone from beneath my feet.

That was until I opened my eyes.

My ears were immediately met with shrieks and cries and shouts of panic, the metallic scent of blood hitting my senses like a brick.

All that resonated in the air was absolute madness. I was almost scared to open my eyes, but they shot open with the deafening sound of something large crashing to the ground.

Dust and smoke instantly stung my eyes, tearing up immediately from the tainted air. Chaos was the only word to describe the scene unfolding before me. Absolute chaos. Buildings, unstable from the quakes, were imploding inwards on themselves, rooves caving in and trapping those still inside. Towers along the wall bordering the Cod Empire and Ora had long since fallen, their wreckage visible even from here. Glass-stained windows from the chapel perched on an island just off the coast were shattered, some pieces floating in the choppy water that ripped along the shore, tearing up land and flooding the low areas of Black Dawn City as it went.

"Oh my god..." I muttered, frozen to the spot, unable to move. It was too overwhelming, too many places that I needed to help at, too many people I wouldn't be able to save. To be at two places at once was my greatest wish at the moment.

Unfortunately, that wasn't possible.

My knuckles were tainted white as I gripped to the ivory handle of my staff, panic clawing at the back of my throat. Where to go? Who to help? My nostrils burned with the scent of fire, the rumbling beneath my feet never ceasing. Black Dawn City wasn't even on a fault line!

Fwhip had really messed up this time.

My head snapped around at a new sound, the best way to describe it being meteors crashing down into the earth. But they weren't meteors. They were bricks and shingles falling as the Dark Tower started to crumble. The tower had been abandoned since Xornoth's defeat, I hardly looked at it or acknowledged it but...

The sound of even more screams from the direction of the collapsing tower brought me out of my walk down memory lane. 

My eyes were drawn to the group of people trying to escape the burning city, scattered beneath the falling structure, attempting to leave by the path winding around the tower.

Fear struck me, boiling like water as I watched people get pinned, stuck, some crushed. No, I couldn't just watch. These people needed help. I wouldn't stand there and oversee their deaths.

Gritting my teeth, my hand tightening on the neck of my staff I started a wild dash towards the tower, trying to beat time and gravity as the spire tipped dangerously. 

The shrieks of terror only worsened the closer I got, from those trapped under rubble from the shingles sliding from the roof and those who had already lost people in the debris.

My feet splashed through some liquid, something my brain immediately interpreted to be water, as I neared the site. The deep purple, nearly black gem within my staff began to glow an eerie shade of red, swirling with shadow as I began to power it up.

 A/N I realize this description of the staff conflicts with my original description of it. I will be changing how the staff looks in the rewrite of WLTDO. For now, you can just picture it similarly to Lord Viren's staff. All my Dragon Prince fans will know what I'm talking about.

I was deathly afraid I wouldn't make it in time, but if that's all I focused on I certainly wouldn't. Instead, I focused on how I would save them, not if. 

As if being drained from my veins I felt energy flowing through my palms, continuing into the staff gripped between my hands.

At a torturous pace the tower continued to tilt faster. But I wouldn't be letting it hit the ground before I got everyone out from under there.

I regained my confidence with every step, throwing myself forward every time my feet hit the ground. 

I slid against the cobbled pathway, directly underneath the tower, coming to a skidding halt as I raised my staff above my head. With a sear of my veins, like flames running along my nerves and with my blood flow, magic began extracting through my palms and straight through my conductor. 

The force of the tower and its debris colliding against the new shield of black and purple swirling smoke that connected back to the jewel in strands was nearly enough to knock me to the ground. Like an extension of my arms, the weight landed on me, though the tower remained supported in the air at an angle, a few dozen feet from crashing into the ground.

With my energy slowly dwindling away, my lips drying and cracking as if my body were being drained of its water, I shouted, "What are you doing!? Run!" Back at those staring in stunned silence instead of escaping. "RUN!" I screamed again, feeling my hold slipping with the sweat on my hands.

That's when the people began to scramble, tugging fallen ones along and out of the way as I struggled to stop the massive structure from killing us all. It felt like the entire weight of the tower had settled upon my shoulders, although I knew if that were truly the case I would have been crushed immediately.

"Everyone out!?" I called, looking over my shoulder. The group had scattered now, all running in different directions to get as far away from the toppling tower as possible. My eyes lingered on the debris, catching sight of a hand as still as death crushed underneath...

I couldn't focus on that now.

I locked my eyes above me, watching as the supports creaked dangerously, the swirl of shadowy magic the only thing between me and the disintegrating stone.

With a shout I tore my staff backwards, snapping the magic away and sucking it back into the jewel. I made a break for it, running to the right and away as it came crashing to the ground.

I heard the deafening cracks as chunks began to hit the ground behind me, becoming louder and louder as they caught up with me. I threw even more power into my sprint, determined to keep ahead of the thundering pieces of debris whilst they tore up the street after hitting the ground.

In one final spurt of speed, I launched myself just out of range rubble colliding with the road.

I hit the ground on my side, skidding and tumbling across the cobbled street, scraping my side raw. My body stung and ached, my arms and face coated in sweat from the strain of keeping the tower standing... Clearly I was rusty. It had been several years since I had attempted a feat such as that.

I lifted my head, following the action with standing and stumbling to my feet, grabbing my staff from the land beside me. 

I felt my torso soaked from where it had made contact with the gravel of the street, my boots remaining soaked from earlier with what I had thought to be water...until coming to the realization that whatever coated me was sticky and warm.

I glanced down, something sharp and acidic creeping up the back of my throat at the sight of crimson staining my robes in thick patches, dripping from the cloth. 

With a sickening squelch I took a step forward, my shoes absolutely doused in the blood that trickled down the streets like an undammed river.

 The streets were absolutely running in red.

My mind was speeding a mile a minute as I searched for solutions to save my city. To save my kingdom. But I was drawing to a blank, thoughts scattered like paper in the wind when I realized this problem was bigger than myself. 

This couldn't just be fixed by a wave of my staff and a few well-spoken words of gibberish. 

Black Dawn City was descending into madness before my eyes. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I turned on my heel, searching for something I could focus on, somewhere I could help, do the little I could to the best of my ability. That was, before my eyes caught on something daunting hanging in the sky.

Plumes of darkness, smoke thicker than anywhere here in Mythland, was rising in the distance from the south...from Gilded Helianthia. 

I remembered my original mission before I saw the state of my empire...find Pearl.

Now even more fear drove through me, like a stake, knowing the disaster that must be residing within her own kingdom.

I just hoped I wasn't too late.

I, yet again, ran forward, slamming my staff between the stone bricks making up the street as I did so. The same feeling returned, of compression and being tossed through void and darkness, before suddenly I was no longer running through the streets of Black Dawn City, but through the winding pathways of Fret, the small capital of Gilded Helianthia. 

The city was absolutely ablaze, the smoke so thick I couldn't breathe properly. It glowed orange, every building catching flames, the fire whistling in the air. I was drenched by my own sweat in seconds from the heat encapsulating the streets.

For a moment I didn't recognize the exact road I stood on, until I noticed that the building burning to my right was the humble farmhouse the Moon family resided in. Or had, because with a creak the supports and ceiling caved in.

The citizens, just like in Mythland, bolted down the streets to try and escape the blaze slowly consuming everything in sight, sprinting to the outer edges. Me however? I traveled as fast as possible towards the center. I knew Pearl would be there, I knew she had to still be helping people escape.

She had to be.

My vision was branded with the flames, orange and flickering fire everywhere I turned, stained against my sight. Panic grew almost like the wildfire, searing my thoughts and burning my chest uncontrollably as it grew.

And that's when, like a spear of relief, I heard her voice rip through the air like the wind tearing over the city as if it were trying to calm the blaze.

"FASTER! ALMOST THERE!"

My head snapped in the direction of Pearl's scream, blinded by the inferno, my senses muffled by the fumes so stifling I could hardly breathe as it choked the oxygen from the air around me.

If I didn't know any better, I would have assumed I had stepped straight into hell.

My gaze landed on one of the many dozens of toppling building, wood crumbling under the fire dancing gracefully yet deadly along the ridges and gables.

As my eyes fell upon the door it burst open, the hinges creaking before snapping, the force throwing it to the dirt. From the glow several shadows emerged, features blurred by the darkness cast upon them as they sprinted from the fiery hold of the house they were escaping.

I backed up several paces to avoid getting trampled, hand tightening along the neck of my staff as I watched the citizens scatter towards safety.

Finally, near the back of the fleeing group, two more figures limped from the wreckage, the smaller of which supported by the other, their arm slung over the taller's shoulders. As they staggered out through the doorway, I instantly recognized the one acting as a support, the gold of the axe fastened to her back glistening and reflecting the light of the flames. 

"Pearl!" I called out, rushing forwards towards my fellow Wither Rose Alliance member as she lifted her head at my voice.

"Sausage?" She called back, her Helianthian accent spiking as it always did when she spoke out of confusion. "Sausage is that you??"

The glow of the fire illuminated her face moments later, crimson dripping from her hairline, face scattered with flecks of ash sticking to her cheeks from sweat.

The person she had helped took off near immediately, running with the rest of the group in the direction I had came from.

"Of course! I was worried sick you have no idea!" I said, practically shouting over all the noise and chaos. "You didn't answer to the communicator!"

"Well of course I didn't! Do you see what's happening!?" Pearl demanded, rushing forwards towards me. "What on EMPIRIA, in the name of GILDEA, happened??"

"Well eh- Fwhip. Fwhip and Jimmy blew something up and–" I was cut off by crashing as the fire continued to weaken the surrounding city, beams and shingles coming tumbling down, dust rising into the air. "–I'll tell you later." I decided. "Right now, we need to get out of here." 

"I can't just leave, Sausage!" Pearl replied, raising her voice to speak over the raging wind and flames. "The people here need me–" 

"You can't do anything right now! We need to escape with the rest and assess the damage later!" I urged, reaching out to tug her by the wrist.

"I'm not leaving my city to burn." Pearl hissed in return, ripping her arm from my grip, each syllable lingering on her tongue, sharp as blades.

"Then you'll burn with it!" I cried. I was not one to plead but I was not about to let my friend's stubbornness be the death of her. "Please.. we've done all we can."

Pearl's blue eyes narrowed, glistening orange and red in the flames that seemed to slowly close in on us. 

Without another word I watched as her protests crumbled. Shaking her head to push the sweaty strands of blonde from her eyes, she started forward, her strut turning into a jog. I followed quickly behind as we began to run through the decimated and destroyed streets. Bricks were overturned, leaving potholes where bodies soaked in their own blood, the smell of burning flesh lingering in the air along with the smoke.

My breaths were ragged, the air condensed and traversing my throat in a suffocatingly thick way, like a gag pressed over my mouth and nose. Pearl's own breathing seemed strained, stretched and raspy like it was getting pulled through a taffy machine. 

We kept our pace, a fast jog as we avoided the unstable districts of the city, trying to navigate through the fire and the haze of thick smog. The city was unrecognizable like this, the golden glory of the trims and the quaint and peaceful setting gone with the violence of the ash filling the air, and the red and orange dancing from roof to roof, ready to consume all it came across.

I trained my eyes on the street, keeping in the middle to avoid where the flames licked the edges of the road, as if begging to reach out its scorching hands and take us as its victims. 

The outskirts of the city weren't far from reach, and we quickened to a sprint, the burning buildings on either side of us becoming a blur of warm colors, their heat pounding into my skull like the hilt of a sword. The sweat dripping down my face from my scalp did nothing to cure the overwhelming feverishness of the surrounding air, only managing to suck the water from my skin, causing my vision to sway in the slightest. 

Now the streets seemed deserted, void of life. Everyone who had lived here, on the outer rim of Fret, and escaped to the forests and fields of crops hours ago.

Pearl had begun to slow down, chest heaving like my own as we tried to gather the little oxygen still in the air into our lungs.

"C'mon, we gotta keep moving." I said, my voice coming out in a rasp as I too struggled to breathe with the blanketed haze of pollution. Reaching out my free arm, not holding my staff, I hooked it around Pearl's to keep her upright.

She glanced up, her eyes half-lidded but sending a silent thank you. Without a word I nodded, taking the lead and keeping our speed just at a jog. It didn't seem Pearl could go any faster than that. 

I buried my concern for the other. I didn't see any injuries visible on her body... but I'd have Katherine look back over her once we met in the forest again.

"Nearly there..." I murmured, trying to hurry best I could while half-dragging Pearl beside me. "We need to find somewhere to hide–" I was cut off by a sound similar to sizzling, like charcoal on an open fire. "–What is that–" I added as I looked around for the source of the noise. 

Turning, my eyes caught on something that made my stomach drop, sending panic crawling up my throat and bursting within my chest.

As if the fire had gained a mind of its own, the flames skirted along the paved pathway, burning the stone with it and blackening it to soot. Like lava it seemed to flow towards us, the heat so unbearable I thought my clothes too would catch fire.

"How- oh- OH NO–" I exclaimed, my voice raising to a shout of terror as the mob of flames grew closer. "RUN!" 

Pearl's head snapped back, her own expression shifting from a look of exhaustion to an alert and panic-ridden one. "Yes, RUN!" She agreed, taking off with her arm still hooked around mine.

I yelped, a sharp pain rocketing up my arm as she nearly yanked my shoulder from its socket. I was almost dragged to the ground before I found my footing, slipping my arm away from hers and darting after her. "WHY IS THE FIRE EATING THE STREET?" I demanded, the heat steadily growing from behind us. I didn't dare look back; I already knew the rampaging wall of fire was gaining on us.

"I'LL EXPLAIN LATER JUST GO!" Pearl replied, raising her voice over the crackling of the stone bricks getting decimated to ashes.

With every step I could feel the road beneath me getting hotter, to the point it burned even through the soles of my boots.

But good news, I could see the edges of the city, where the buildings faded into stone walls and hedges lining several fields of grain and crops, and where the paved path melted into a dirt one...fire couldn't burn on dirt, right?

Bad news, it was still several hundred feet away.

When I didn't think I could run any faster, I put on a new burst of speed, my second wind. With my body sticky with sweat like I had been dunked into a river, head pounding with dehydration and lungs deprived of oxygen, I managed to keep going. Somehow, I had kept a hold on my staff, and I held it tighter to my side than ever.

Pearl's face was bright red from the overexertion, but she managed to keep the same speed as I did, eyes locked on where the stone road ended.

I was fully aware of the fact I could die today. But I'd rather not burn alive, that is in my top ten worst deaths, please and thank you.

Prayers to gods I didn't believe echoed in my head as I hoped beyond hope that we'd make it off the pathway in time. I could feel the fire encroaching, as if a giant beast getting ready to take us as its prey in its scorching paws. 

And I was not about to become the dinner of the demonic fiery lion I was now picturing in my head.

I could practically sense the flames licking my back, before with one final leap I grabbed Pearl, throwing us both forward and off the burning road. We tumbled across the ground, the gravelly dirt scraping against my bare skin and ripping through my cloak like paper from the speed we had hit the pathway at.

I came to the sudden and jolting realization that if the fire did indeed surpass the paved street, we were as good as a child's toasted marshmallow on a summer's night. Burnt.

We came to a skidding halt moments later, a tangle of limbs and cloth, before I had managed to shove myself from the ground. I didn't feel burnt.

And sure enough, as I lifted my head, I saw the fire had come to a direct stop exactly where the path and city ended. A sheer wall of flames.

"That...cannot be natural." I said as I stood, holding out a hand to help Pearl to her feet.

"It's complicated." Pearl replied breathlessly, though at the moment she gave no sign of elaborating. She gripped my forearm tightly, stumbling the slightest as she stood. "Later." She added at the look I gave her.

"We need to find somewhere to rest. We're supposed to meet everyone at the central meeting point, in the Derelict Forest." I explained, trying to catch my breath while I stared at the wall of flames, which resembled what I pictured as the gates of hell. "After all...this is over."

"Hah." Pearl exclaimed, resting a hand on her hip, exhaling slowly while she too looked at the bordering blaze around the city. "Noted. How's the others doing?" She asked, sounding like she was trying to start up small talk. Typical Pearl.

I gave a weak laugh at her words. "Well, Fwhip nearly blew himself up, Jimmy is...definitely not stable and everyone else is checking out what happened to their own lands. And Gem's dragon egg hatched. And Joey's angry." I listed, attempting to remember all that had taken place in the forest.

"Joey's always angry–" Pearl pointed out, straightening back up.

"Fair enough." I agreed, wiping ash, gravel and specks of blood off of my palms, onto my pants. "But seriously, we need to get moving if we don't want to boil alive in this heat."

"Any idea of where to go?" Pearl questioned, raising an eyebrow, before reaching to tie back her hair, no longer a dark blonde but now a mid-shade of brunette from how drenched it seemed. Like it had been dunked in a tub of water.

"Nope!" I replied, before turning my heel and beginning to walk with my back to Fret...or what was left of Fret.

I heard a small chuckle before the crunch of Pearl's shoes as she began to follow me down the pathway, albeit much slower than before, dragging her feet along.

I turned my head to look at her a few moments later. She looked much more exhausted than she had what felt like minutes before, dark circles looking as if they had been drawn on under her eyes, her posture sinking.

I backstepped, sliding my arm around and under her arms to help her up like I had before. "Are you sure you're okay?" I asked, using my staff as a walking stick to better support us both. 

"Yeah...I'll be fine." She reassured, listing the slightest into my side to show she was accepting my help. "Just tired."

I wish I could have believed her.

~

It must have been an hour or so later when neither of us could continue much further.

"I... I think we're far enough away." I panted, coming to a halt. With Pearl's nod of agreement, I slowly lowered both of us to the ground with a slight struggle, my staff clattering into the dirt.

"Well," Pearl said through a breathless exhale, positioning herself with her back against a tree. "That was something." I could practically see the swirl of denial behind her eyes. Denial of what was happening within her capital and most of her empire. If I was being completely honest, I also was in denial. I didn't even want to think about what might be happening in Black Dawn City. What I hadn't been able to stop.

"I think I deserve an explanation on why the street turned into lava now, please and thank you." I requested, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my equally-as-damp sleeve. It was still incredibly dry here, the air arid yet swirling with heat that cracked my skin and sucked it of its little moisture. 

Pearl sighed. Not an 'I really don't want to talk about this' sigh but a 'Sausage, you absolute buffoon' sigh. "Ever heard of the curse of Gildea?" She asked, resting an arm across her torso, chest heaving.

"Nope, not a damn clue." I replied, propping myself up on my elbows to give my body a break.

"Do you at least know who Gildea is?"

When I shook my head she looked like she desperately wanted to facepalm, and it concerned me when it seemed she couldn't work up enough energy to do so. "Sausageee I don't have the time to give you a whole history lesson! Did you not pay attention in school?!"

"I want to say yes...but probably no.." I said slowly, only to earn Pearl's signature eye roll. 

"You idiot..." She sighed, hinting at something similar to affection in her tone. "Fine, fine, all you need to know about her is that she led the revolution against Mythland something something centuries ago and is the reason Gilded Helianthia is a separate kingdom now, mkay? Well, legend has it that Fret held a curse by the woman, meant to be a blessing at the time that bound the land together. It was supposed to spread nutrients, water and so and so through the soil for equal distributions but as you can see now, it also causes harm like that to become 'distributed'. At least I assume that's why the fire spread even to the paved roads. Other than that theory I have absolutely no idea why the fire began to 'eat the street' or whatever you said back there."

"Ohh," I exclaimed, the legend familiar. "But wasn't there another big fire in Fret a couple years ago? Why didn't this happen then–?"

I watched as the muscles in Pearl's face tightened at the mention, her body tensing. "Yeah, it didn't. We managed to keep the fire contained to a small, in comparison to the city, area. That's why my dads tried so hard to contain it."

"Ah..." I murmured as an awkward silence settled within the clearing we had decided to rest in. 

A/N Y'all the temptation to add a Tom Holland style 'Mr. Stark I don't feel so good' is overwhelming right now

A brittle wind shook the barren branches overhead, the leafy canopy gone to leave rotting and greenless limbs swaying overhead. It left an ominous feeling lingering in the air, with nothing but me and Pearl's heavy breathing to mask the silence. Despite the heat, I felt a chill ride up my back, my panic spiking. Something was going to happen, I knew it. And that only intensified the fear I felt that resided still after our escape from Fret.

My eyes were drawn down from the orange sky at a shudder of Pearl's. My head snapped in her direction as her eyes screwed shut, shoulders hunching as she seemed to be trying to make herself appear smaller.

"Pearl?" I questioned, reaching out to hold her wrist...before immediately drawing away in a flinch from how scalding her skin was. Like it was on fire.

With a wince-like sound, Pearl slowly opened her eyes to glance down. After a quick look at her hands, an expression of terror swept behind her eyes like the overhead wind, fleeting and horrifying. "Oh no..." she muttered.

"What?" I demanded, moving closer as the resonating feeling of fear only grew. "What's happening? Pearl!?"

"A little addition to our history lesson," she began, words getting more rigid and tight the longer she spoke. "It was also said that not only the land, but the Moon bloodline was connected to the land...therefore if the land burns...I burn."

I froze, her words not wanting to make sense amongst my thoughts. That was until it had penetrated my skull, cracking it open, and like a firework leaking into my mind, the realization hit me. Like an explosion, indecipherable waves of panic and fear and anger and grief crashed into me, each more overwhelming and drowning than the next.

My gaze fell down to Pearl's hands which she held cradled, large splotches of soot-like blackness covering her palms, slowly flaking away like dust in the breeze.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no." I said, so quickly there was no space between my words. "No, I can fix it- I can fix it–" I added, voice strained and threatening to break as I scrambled desperately for my staff. I fumbled it, my fingers rigid and not wanting to move from the absolute dread coursing through my veins. I searched my head desperately for solutions, finding nothing in the swirl of thoughts each blurred and boneless and unintelligible. 

"Sausage you can't fix this one..." Pearl said, her tone gaining a softness that you would use towards a child. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry! No, no you're going to be alright! I know you will you're- you're Pearl! The warrior queen! You can't be going- no you can't–"

At my words Pearl gave a small, sad chuckle, the ash like pieces beginning to peel from her face and float up and through the air. "You'll be just fine without me, even if you are the most irresponsible man I know. Just make sure Fwhip doesn't do anything stupid, okay? And try and find my dad if you can..."

"No! I won't let you!" I said, my voice raising and cracking. Tears I didn't even know were there to begin with stung my eyes and face like miniature floods rippling across my cheeks. Dropping my staff with a clatter back against the dirt, I threw my arms around her. I pulled her in despite the burn of her skin searing my arms as if I were hugging a hearth, my skin blistering at the touch. But the physical pain compared nothing to the mental turmoil within my head.

I held to her as tight as I could, my face buried in her shoulder and fingers twisting and gripping to the back of her shirt as if maybe, maybe if I held her close enough, held her tight enough, it would stop. My fingers and arms began to go numb in moments but I wasn't about to relent my hold on my stabilizer, one of my best friends. Yet I still felt her seemingly begin to crumbled beneath my arms.

I could sense, practically see the small, sad smile that traced her lips as she moved to hug me back, fingers twirling between strands of my hair as she too rested her chin on my own shoulder. "You'll be okay, Sausage." She said in that calm, steady voice of hers, strong and steadfast as always. I heard no fear lingering between her words, a stark contrast to how I felt in those moments.

But slowly, her form began to fade away no matter how tightly I held on, no matter how much I wished for this all to be a dream, until I was suddenly holding nothing but ash and dust in my arms, the wind sweeping it away to swirl into the sky.

As I opened my eyes, something broke. Something inside of me broke with her parting. Pearl was gone.

"No..." I murmured, so quiet I could hardly hear it. Just one word because I couldn't bear to speak another. A word that could mean anything in the world, speak in any tone you wish, though mine was filled with heartache. 

"I failed you..."

***

:)

You're welcome.

Sorry this took so long– I got stumped during a few parts :/

But uh yeah, Scott pov next, this'll be fun >:D