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A sharp pain shoots up the side of Drift’s body. Pearl was trying to move her.
“Are you trying to killing me quicker?!”
Pearl just gives her a pointed stare and mumbles something Drift can't quite hear.
“Why did you do that?”
Pearl shifts into an expression that can only be described as duh. “I wanted you to see the sky. Y'know like turn you over to look up.”
Drift's face immediately turns sour.
“Thought you would want to see sky more clearly. Pretty sure the sun is about to rise.” Pearl looks out to the horizon, “Don't you want to see the light one last time.”
Drift hates the connotation, "see the sun" for what? Because of her god? Apollo, bringer of light, but at the moment she doesn’t want anything to do with him. He supplied her with little help and even fewer explanation. And trusting her own judgment, Apollo only picked her for the tragedy. A good story to entertain him for a day or two. She wants nothing to do with him.
Or maybe Pearl did it because she thinks Drift is bright. Drift feels sick at the notion. She was never bright. Nor in life or this pseudo afterlife. She might pretend to be happy and loud like she had true light within her but that was to will herself in a better version… yet closest she become to light was sun poison. Painful on body. Painful to look at. Pearl at least understood that. She's still looking off at the distance, not wanting to get hurt by Drift’s blinding will.
One last thought passes over Drift, her. There's no way Pearl knows of her but Pearl is pretty sneaky… maybe she overheard conversations she wasn’t meant to hear. Heard of Drift's devotion—and destruction—to her light. But Drift realizes, she doesn’t really mind if Pearl overheard it now. Another ear to hear of her love. Another mind to remember her.
But Drift knows she doesn’t deserve to see any resemblance of her, especially so close to death. Drift gave herself that luxury earlier. Dying the first time in a sunflower field. Staring at the sun as a guiding light as the world faded away… only to end up here in this arena. A fate justified for her because Drift knows each brutality thrust upon her still wasn't enough to condemn her of her selfish actions.
“I don’t deserve to see the sun.”
Pearl turns back, her eyes seem different. Darker maybe. Wetter.
“You have problems,” Pearl sneers.
“Yeah yeah, I know but I think my biggest problem at the moment is me actively bleeding out.”
“Right.”
A beat.
“So no sun?” Pearl warily ask, “like for real, no sun for the sunshine girl?”
Drift winces a little at the name, “No, I was never the sunshine girl.”
Pearl hums.
“Pearl,” Drift meekishly asks. Pearl's dark eyes locked onto Drift's brown ones, “Can I ask you favor?”
“Aren't I already killing you? What else could you want?”
Drift puffs up her chest, well as much as she could with what meager scrapes of energy she has, “Hey man! Dying girl here! I think im allowed to ask for some final wishes.”
“Meh meh meh! I'm Drift and I'm dying! I need Pearl to feed me grapes and fan me as I doze off.”
“Pearl! I'm serious” then Drift pauses, “wait, that doesn’t sound bad actually.”
The two champions share a short lived laugh but Pearl quickly recomposes herself, “but really Drift, what do you want? If its not outrageous, I’ll do it.”
Drift nods, “I want you… to…” but the words struggle to come out. To ask for a genuine last favor. A selfish one.
“Drift, spit it out” Pearl gently places her hand on Drifts cheek, guiding the fallen girl to look at her, “I'm not going to judge.”
And as those deep eyes carve themselves into Drift's dying body, she knows Pearl is exactly what she needs.“Can you… do your magic?”
The hand on Drift's cheek falters a little but the small warmth never fully left. Pearl scans Drift's face, “the one… that hurts you?”
Drift hums. Pearl can feel the vibration in her hand.
“Are you sure?”
Drift lifts her hand to settle nicely on top of Pearls. She doesn’t mind the blood stains but the coldness of the touch feels almost painful. She never thought Drift could be so dull.
Drift murmurs, “I want the night. In all its glory… as I die.”
“If you must.”
Pearl closes her eyes and awakens the night within them. The fleeting darkness of the sky seems to gather in Pearl and a throbbing pain settles into Drift.
Agony coats Drift's face—more then it already has—and Pearl wants to stop. But the smile hidden under all the pain makes Nyx's champion not let up. Pearl may be many things but she's good on carrying out her favors.
“Are you ready?”
Drift's eyes crinkle. Every inch of her, from the gaping wounds on her middle to the sharp pains on her temple, fit perfectly to give her a death befitting of her, “Yeah. Thanks Pearl.”
“Oh, don't say thank you,” Pearl winces out, but she grabs the axe from her side.
“We’ll do our fight next time.”
And that's what breaks Pearl. The darkness weakens for a moment. “Don't say that either.”
“Sorry,” Drift huff out, the closest thing to a laugh she can muster, “it's been a slice”
Drift is smiling as the final blow hits.
And all that follows is silence.
The usually melody of the world—the bugs humming, the critters wandering around, the branches and bushes swaying—it all seems to pause. Even Sausage, who had been watching and weeping throughout the whole conversation, was still.
Pearl hates it.
She needs some sound. Anything. She would have taken Drift's dying heaves over this.
“Come on, Sausage, let's head to the arena.”
Sausage breaks down, “but… Drift! She was in pain… she's..”
Pearl wraps an arm around the man and rubs what she hopes are soothing circles into his back, “It's what she wanted. She was already dying so it was best to give her that.”
Sausage lays his head onto Pearl and stammers out between his sniffles, “I… you’re really kind Pearl…”
Pearl stiffens.
“Thank you for doing that for Drift.”
“You people really need to stop thanking me for murder,” Pearl mumbles out but as she does, she turns off her darkness. She knows it needs to charge back up again. Another light soon needs to be engulfed in her shadow.