#etho and joel tried to steal the other apples before they were shooed away

[kayawolfhorse]

Day 7 — Between Your Teeth

—☾—

Pearl kisses the top of Tilly’s head in a hasty goodbye before scrambling down the rickety ladder at her tower’s core. When the ground is close enough to make out the individual blades of grass, Pearl releases her hold and curses when she feels the damage tick in her ankles. Normally, she wouldn’t mind sending a tickle or two Scott’s way, but Scott definitely knows what she’s planning now.

The forest is a blur around her as Pearl careens through dense underbrush and just barely avoids getting caught on low-hanging branches. Birch turns to oak and gentle hills give way to a steeper uphill climb until finally, Pearl reaches spawn.

The clearing is about the same as she remembers it to be; a meadow overlooking the plains below, miraculously untouched by the snow that cascades down the side of its crest. The only difference now is a group of seven stones in its center, arranged in a perfect circle, a golden apple set upon each one. It stands empty, the apples untouched; Pearl is the first to arrive.

Pearl slowly approaches the circle. Every apple is identical, but as she looks between them, something tugs at her heart, like a string suddenly pulled taut between her ribs. Extending her arm, she allows the invisible line to guide her hand until it closes over the easternmost apple.

Nearby, a twig snaps. Pearl snatches up the apple and holds it in a tight fist as voices draw nearer, rustling in the boughs of the forest around her until they emerge into spawn.

Scott’s bright blue hair is hard to miss amidst the brown trunks, and the laugh he shares with Cleo is achingly, hauntingly intimate.

“I figured that’s why you were in such a hurry,” Scott says to Pearl after he looks from her hand to her face, and Pearl swears he sounds smug.

Pearl grits her teeth before displaying them in a too-wide smile. “Well, wouldn’t you look at what we have here! I couldn’t let just anyone get a hand on this, now could I?”

She holds her victory aloft, and in the morning sun its golden flesh shines with the faint purple sheen of enchantments. Pearl’s next inhale is a little sharper. They all know what regular golden apples are rumored to do, but this—Pearl’s not sure.

Scott’s gaze is calculating as he takes it in. Scoffing, he says, “We both know we’d be better off if you ate it.”

Before Pearl can respond, Martyn comes crashing through the trees, stumbling at full speed towards the stone circle before stopping abruptly when he catches sight of the two empty spots.

“Cleo-oooo!” he whines, to Cleo’s smirk.

“You really think I’d trust you with this?” Cleo says, raising an eyebrow. “You’d get us both killed!”

“C’mon, we’ve got no clue what it does!” Martyn says. “You’re just going to eat it for yourself.”

“You’re damn right I am.” Cleo raises the apple to her lips and bites down. Martyn flinches hard, half-reaching for them. Scott looks on with vaguely detached curiosity and Pearl holds her breath.

Nothing visibly happens. Cleo frowns at the fruit in their hands, and Martyn straightens up in relief. Its unbroken skin is a punch to Pearl’s chest when Cleo twists their wrist to reveal it. Her win over Scott suddenly feels very hollow.

“It didn’t even work,” Martyn says, between a short laugh and a cheeky grin.

Cleo fixes him with a stare. She’s not glaring, but the sentiment behind her unwavering yellow eyes is all the same. Pearl’s tempted to clap her hands, just to see what would happen.

Soon enough, Martyn shifts, and Cleo tosses their hair over their shoulder. “I’m not breaking a tooth for this fool,” they declare, and walk back over to Scott. Addressing him, they ask, “And you?”

Scott shrugs. “She’s got the apple. I don’t care.”

Cleo glances at Pearl before looking back at Scott with an expression that speaks of concerns she won’t raise until they’re back in the safety of their base.

“Can I at least have the apple, then?” Martyn asks, joining their little group.

“No.” With a decisive swipe of their hand, the apple disappears into Cleo’s inventory, and Martyn hums in disappointment.

“Well!” Scott says after cheerfully letting the moment linger too long. “We’d best be on our way. Don’t want to be here when the reds show up.”

“Right,” Cleo agrees. “I’d say it’s been nice, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, point taken,” Martyn grumbles. “I’m out of here.” He trudges down the snowy side of the hill, muttering complaints as he goes.

Neither Scott nor Cleo offer Pearl anything more before they take off together, leaving Pearl standing alone. Her fingers flex. She wishes she had thought to bring her powdered snow bucket.

As she strides back home, she purposefully takes a few landings from too high up.

—☾—

Pearl tosses the wretched thing between her hands and groans in frustration. Tilly looks up from her spot beneath the window and tilts her head at the noise.

Tucking the apple into her pocket, Pearl drops onto the floor next to Tilly and wraps an arm around her. “I just don’t know what to do.”

As far as anyone knows, there’s only ever been one golden apple within the boundaries of this world, and it’s long gone now. This was supposed to be Pearl’s chance to finally unbind the shackles between her and the soulmate that never wanted her, and she can’t even eat it.

Magical foods tend to be tricky things, meant only to be pierced by the recipient’s bite. Slicing it would ruin its properties, as would any sort of denting, cracking, or otherwise tampering. Pearl had thought that maybe Cleo just hadn’t bit down hard enough. Her own aching mouth proves otherwise.

Tilly turns and snuffles into Pearl’s side. Pearl laughs and scratches between her shoulders, and Tilly leans into the touch hard enough to almost topple them both.

“I’m glad I have you, Tilly,” Pearl says, smiling something bittersweet. “No matter who the universe stuck me with, I know who my soulmate really is.”

—☾—

The weight in her pocket grows heavier as the games continue on. Pearl doesn’t know why she bothers keeping the apple on her person. She can’t bring herself to put it properly away.

It becomes a comfort in the center of her palm. It’s a perpetually painful reminder of inevitabilities outside of her control. She debates throwing it at Scott a few times.

Weeks later, after the apple against her hip has become a permanent bruise, the finale is finally upon them. Pearl begrudgingly teams with Scott until it makes more sense to split up, and she relishes in leaving him for once, even if he had technically agreed to it. Their shared health is a liability; it was never going to work out.

Pearl and her wolves hunt through the night and watch the sun rise on what she knows deep in her gut to be the final day. Death reins like lightning around her as pair after pair are sent to what lies between this world and the next.

Her vision turns red in the wake of Tilly’s death. Pearl kills Impulse and Bdubs in a blind rage; Martyn and Cleo fall to her blade soon after. Suddenly, jarringly, the world is quiet, save for the quiet yips of the few wolves still wound around her legs. Pearl gives them the last bit of food she has and wonders if this is the end.

Pearl meets Scott at spawn. The game is not yet over.

Scott strips away his armor and places TNT at his feet. Striking flint to steel, he looks up at Pearl and says, “You deserve this more.”

Lurching backwards with a yelp, Pearl exclaims, “Excuse you? What do you mean?”

“You do.” Scott crouches down and sets the TNT alight. “Tilly death do us part.”

Pearl scrambles for the apple in her pocket in the ticks it takes for the spark to eat away at the fuse. Grasping its smooth surface, she brings the apple to her mouth and bites as hard as she can, even as a tooth shatters and her jaw screams in agony.

Just as the world goes up in a catastrophic symphony, her mouth floods with sweet ambrosia and the metallic tartness of her own blood. Her scrapes and bruises knit themselves back into unblemished flesh as Pearl is flung backwards into the tree behind her.

Scott is dead. The wildly pounding heartbeat that rings in her ears is hers alone. Pearl, a lonely victor in an empty world, has won.