Archive of Our Own

A long time ago, before the world was adorned in danger and before the deepest and darkest places were fled, there was no night. Day prevailed endlessly, light followed by light followed by light, the brightness ebbing and flowing with the movements of clouds.

Time was governed by a single tower: a structure made of something that looked like stone but stood far stronger. Every ten years, a single champion of the village of Dawn would be sent to the tower, to relight the flame there that kept the day from bleeding away.

The tenth year was drawing to a close. The time to send a new champion was close.

Halfway across the small continent, a young woman looked up at the sky and dreamed of the moon.

*

Gem was not the kind of person one would imagine as a champion.

Most of her mornings awake were spent in the apiaries, tending to the beehives there and watching over the flowers inside. She would gather up a few of her favourites to bring out into the village hall to hang them in little wicker baskets, before heading to her room to draw or paint or whatever might take her fancy in that present moment.

Other mornings she might just sit by the docks and let the fresh sea air consume her, salt filling her lungs like breath.

And there were no times that were not morning, because they lived in a land of eternal sun, and it was thanks to her very village that it could remain so.

It would be thanks to her that the sun could remain in the sky.

Gem was not the kind of person one would imagine as a champion, but the truth was that she was one, no matter what anyone might say. She had been selected, shone upon by the sun’s rays at their last Festival, and so she would be the one to save them all.

It was her last day in the village today — the last rotation of the sun about its axis, trailing around the sky like a slow spinning dancer, before she would be sent off on her mission.

She had resolved to treat it like any normal day.

When she woke up, she checked the position of the sundial and spent the next few hours at the apiaries, her farewell to the many bees given in the form of cleaning out their hives and watering the flowers.

Even as she worked, she could see people glancing in through the windows at her. Curious, she supposed. After all, she was supposed to be getting ready.

But if whatever powers were out there had chosen her for this task, then she figured she should go entirely as herself. She could fight decently, survive a long journey across the land, arrange accommodations for herself if she should run into anyone along the way.

Once she was satisfied with her work, she brushed her hands against her skirts and headed out of the apiary, careful to drop the beaded entrance behind her so that none of the bees would get stuck outside. She headed across the village to the hall, and arranged her flowers in the baskets just outside.

For the last time in a long time, she thought to herself. She wasn’t sure how long her journey would end up being. The last person had spent a year on the way there, fighting off the monsters in a valley of darkness along the way.

“Gem, there you are!” greeted a familiar voice, and Gem looked up in surprise, shaken out of her thoughts.

Her face split into a grin. “Sausage! What are you doing here?”

Sausage was her closest friend, a blacksmith from the next village over. They’d grown up together before he had left to establish his own settlement, and kept in contact ever since with letters and frequent visits. For the past few years, these had gotten more and more spread apart, mostly due to their respective responsibilities, but just seeing him now was enough to remind Gem of how difficult it was to stop caring for him.

“Well, I heard someone was heading out on an important mission soon,” Sausage said, “and I realised I hadn’t even had a chance to come and wish you luck!”

He bounded up the last few steps to the village hall and engulfed her in a hug, and she returned it with a laugh.

“Oh, Sausage, you don’t need to worry,” she replied. “Everything will be perfectly fine. I’ll get to the tower and be back before you know it.”

“I still want to wish you luck,” he said, voice muffled against her shoulder.

“Alright,” she smiled. “Thank you, Sausage.”

As the morning progressed into further morning, Sausage accompanied her on her route around the village, helping her tidy up as she went and saying goodbye to the various people as they watched from their doorways. It was a rather cheerful procession, all things considered, made lighter still by the company.

Finally, the sun completed its circle around the sundial, and Gem arrived back at her home.

“I suppose it’s time for me to go now,” she said almost idly, as Sausage watched her pick up her travelling bag from the top of her wardrobe in silence.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay? I hear there’s always those night people who try to intervene in these things.”

Gem smiled at him. “I can look after myself. Nobody is putting out the sun on my watch, okay?”

Sausage gave a long, unsure look. In a way, she understood his worry. He was the protector of his people, after all, and knew herself to be included among that number.

But she was a protector of her people too, and so she could not let anything distract her from the path that had been laid for her.

“Everything will be fine,” she reassured him, repeating the words she had often told herself in these past months. She approached him, and took his hands. “Every champion is selected because we have the ability to make the journey. Have some trust in me, okay?”

“Okay,” Sausage said with a small huff. “Just be safe.”

“I will be. Thank you for coming to wish me luck.”

“Of course.”

For a moment, Gem gave him one last hug, and then she pulled the bag a little higher up her back and set off out of the door, one more wave and goodbye sent through the window as she went.

The sun shone down on her, warm and comforting as ever from where it held the sky in place, bright and constant like a blessing.

With the image of Sausage’s creased brow impressed upon her mind, Gem stepped onto the road that led out of her village and began her journey.

*

The river looked absolutely stunning today. Light danced upon the places where it rushed forward, specks of sun scattered over the rocks and mist flying just above the water.

Pearl thought it would look even more incredible in the dark.

All that sound, and nothing to attribute it to; only a comforting rhythm made more musical by the dim light of the moon. And the moon itself: reflected in the rippling water, so soft and bright and beautiful.

Her whole life, Pearl had been whispered stories of the moon. She had seen old paintings of deep blue skies filled with pinpricks of tiny lights and wondered what they were. She had heard of a great circle that grew and shrunk with time, ever-changing, pinned to the dark sky like a blessing.

She had always wished to see it. All her village had, although they would only whisper their desires behind locked doors and weave them into fairytales.

A long time ago, the moon used to smile upon them. It was like a pearl resting upon a riverbed, and beneath its gaze all would be possible. She knew the story, and it was a comfort to her.

If nothing else, she would bring back the moon.

Pearl reached an intersection in the river, and glanced both ways briefly. While her path was surely one to the east, it was still tempting to explore wherever this other tributary might go. The mystery of it all allured her.

She peered towards that other direction but found herself only disappointed by the lack of real excitement it presented. It was only a stream to a small mountain, where inevitably some spring must pour forth the water.

Pearl sighed. It was not as if she wished to delay her trip, but she did want something a little more exciting than a simple path to a tower, and a simple blowing out of a flame.

With a slightly disappointed frown, Pearl hopped over the smaller stream and continued along her way.

There was a vague path along the side of this river, carved out by centuries of passing feet and lined with tall grasses, trailing along its merry way down the riverside.

Pearl liked the path — it was some sign of the people before her who had undertaken the same mission — but she preferred the edges of the water where the mud was soft. Her feet would sink into the ground a little with each light step and she would feel it against her shoes whenever she lifted her leg.

Most of the time her people would head the long way to the docks to sell their wares, though that was in the opposite direction. This way was to the tall mountains said to be far in the distance, and she did not know anyone who had ever been there before. This route was new to her, and yet it still felt familiar, like a story traced onto her palm.

Stories were exciting to her. She liked to watch them weave themselves into mysteries, and then unravel into threads as they wound to an end.

Back in Pearl’s village, most of the tradespeople were weavers. They would stitch pale circles into the corners of patterns and embroider crescents onto the hidden undersides of their shirts. Like a secret, they would invent new designs every day, each unique and entirely unseen.

When weaving their usual wares, they would only stitch sun-adorned carpets and cloaks, each identical and ready to be sold halfway across the continent.

As they embroidered golden sunflowers into the hems of dresses, they would whisper it among themselves with quiet laughs: ‘same old, same old’. Always with their sun, those other villages and towns; always with their adamant ways and ancient habits.

Pearl was here to break those old habits, to set free the moon from its prison below the horizon. She would cast away the sun, put out its light long enough to reveal the night that had so long been pushed away. All of the stories would come true again, and the hidden stitches beneath her people’s pillows could be overturned and shown in the pale moonlight.

It would be dark, and it would be brilliant.

She would make sure of it. There was nothing that could stand in her way, nor anyone who could stop her on her quest.

For now, the sun still shone, ever high and ever bright, and the river reflected its brightness right back up.

Same old, same old, Pearl found herself repeating, as she skipped over the rocks at the edge of the river, skirting danger with her every step.

*

Gem had been to this river a couple of times before.

When it got especially hot in her village, in the summers where the air turns dry and the grass starts to fade into yellow, she had often been the one to trek down to the river and fill up the plastic containers in her cart. She had always been a protector of her village – a champion – even in the little ways nobody had noticed.

The mist was quite nice, actually. Water sloshed against the rocks and sprayed droplets everywhere, soft on her face and cool on her arms. If most of the journey was like this, she wouldn't mind it at all, actually.

She glanced up briefly at the sun and smiled. How could she not? Everything she needed was right here. Everything she wanted was right above her.

Slowly the day went on, with little to think about or do, and she cycled through all the songs she could remember until her lungs and throat tired of it. Still the sun spun, high in the sky, and the river stretched on.

The world seemed to fade away, as if she was dreaming. Perhaps it was a side effect of all the boredom, she thought, as the ground turned to nothing under her feet and she walked across the blank air like something mystical. She watched distantly and walked on, as the sun continued to turn above her in its never-ending waltz.

Her reverie was broken by a movement in the distance.

A rabbit, she realised, hopping across the green grasses to her left to stop by the river and rest in the light spray. Something about it was so peaceful she felt her own feet slowing to a stop.

The moment she paused, she felt her legs begin to ache at once. Before now she hadn't even realised how tired she was getting. Copying the rabbit, she approached the river's edge and perched beside it, the water up to her knees as she dangled them in, and the mist reaching the rest of her easily.

This was where she'd take a rest, she decided. She picked out some bread and cheese from her bag and began to eat under the unrelenting, loyal warmth of the sun.

It was a few hours before she decided to sleep here, too, pulling her legs free from the river and then ducking under a low-hanging tree nearby.

She woke to a song she had never heard before.

It was faint, as if it had been carried down the river to meet her. Like a call, perhaps; she sat up to hear it better, and it faded into nothing.

Up in the sky, the sun burned on, noticeably hot against Gem’s skin.

“You’re in a hurry,” she said, glancing up. “Alright, alright, I’ll go.”

Not that the sun could hear her, or — well, certainly nobody believed that it could. It was just a magnificent great something in the sky, eyeless and soulless, and to talk to it would be akin to talking to oneself. But Gem had done it in her quiet moments regardless, because it was something more to believe in and something more to love.

And it was something she considered to have quite an attitude, evidenced by her huff as she collected her things, shook her head at the sun, and headed the short distance back to the river.

The path was clear from here. Nothing should keep her from her goals, nor stop her walk to whatever would come next.

As she walked on, mind drifting off again, she could still hear the high, clear notes of the song that had woken her up, trailing off in her head and then restarting until the tune was lost to the warping of her memory.

*

The sky felt like it was getting darker. It wasn’t really, Pearl knew — it was just a stretch of clouds that would block out the ferocity of the sun for a little — but there was some comfort in the mundane grey it left behind. It was rather nice to not feel like she was being glared at.

Far in the distance, she could see the smudge on the horizon where the bridge must be. It still looked like half a day’s worth of travel away, but at least it was there now. There was a breeze coming from that direction too, somewhat stronger in the absence of the sun’s heat. It felt wonderful and familiar, even as it lifted her hair and arrayed it across her face.

Pearl was quite used to breezes and apathetic days such as this, coming from her village among the rainy mountains.

When she was little, she used to run outside in the rain and splash around in the puddles pooling along shining streets. As she got older, she would run outside less, instead opening up a window to let the cool air and the comforting pitter-patter of rain form a backdrop to her sewing. Rainstorms would be all the more delightful, static in the air and the sky growing so dim that Pearl could look up out of her window and imagine an ocean of stars might be behind it.

It wasn’t raining here — and it wouldn’t, she knew, from the shape of the clouds — but the familiarity still brought Pearl a boost of energy that had her pacing faster down the river.

She began to sing as she moved. It was an old song from her village, a love song about dancing in the rain. Despite the lack of rain, she sang it all the way down the river, right until she could see the space between the water and the bridge.

After that, she hurried forward, now more focused on her goal than keeping herself entertained. With the end of this long stretch so close at hand, she felt her motivation renewed, and even as the sun burst out louder than ever from behind the clouds she did not let it stop nor slow her relentless pace.

*

The bridge was a magnificent thing.

Along the side were carvings of sunlight, deep brown wood inlaid with gold and glinting a little in the bright morning. As Gem approached, she could see the details more clearly, rows of champions holding torches and walking towards the other side of the bridge.

This tradition really must have stretched back so far in the past, she noted, looking at the old script carved across the top of the bridge. It was a little too curved to read, worn by the elements and rendered illegible, but it looked just as pretty as a slight bordering.

She stepped onto the bridge, and then froze at the sight before her.

“Who are you?” she called.

The person a little way across the bridge from her stopped too. They turned around slowly, and as they did Gem saw two wide eyes looking back at her in sudden alarm.

“You're the…” the person said. They frowned deeply. “You're the sun's champion.”

They were wearing a hood. Their clothes were a deep blue, with purple trimming and tiny embroidered patterns that – even from here – Gem could guess were tiny moons and stars.

“You're trying to bring back the moon,” she realised.

When people had told her there would be others trying to stop her, people fighting for the night to come back, she had imagined monsters or bandits or the like. She certainly hadn't pictured another person just like herself, with dark eyes and flowers in their hair and a backpack just like Gem's own.

“Why?” she finally managed to ask.

The other person kept staring at her, stuck in place. And then, sudden as a hare, they spun around and began to run down the bridge, feet slamming against the hollow wooden floor.

“Hey! Hey, hang on!” Gem shouted. She couldn't let this competitor get ahead of her just by running away. “That's not fair, you can't just—”

She burst into action, racing across the bridge after them. Despite not quite being the strongest from her village, she was still quick on her feet, so she caught up before they had even reached halfway, leaping up to tackle them to the ground with a loud thud. The moon's champion wriggled beneath her, trying to break themself free, and Gem could feel her grip slipping.

The bridge creaked a little as the other champion squirmed out of her hold and stumbled to their feet. Gem followed after them as fast as she could, and this time grabbed at the back of their bag and tugged backwards, sending them sprawling as she raced ahead. Not two seconds later, she felt a kick at her feet and watched as the other champion overtook her again.

She wasn't getting anywhere like this.

Again, she jumped ahead and pulled at the moon champion's bag, this time rolling on top of them with the full intention to knock them unconscious to slow them more. She trapped them between her knees and reached into her bag to grab something she could use.

Those same dark eyes looked back up at her, and she paused.

The sun felt like it had softened into shadow. Whoever this was, Gem struggled to find it in her to hurt them. They were — they were just human.

“Who are you?” she tried, her voice still a little breathless from the struggle.

The moon's champion furrowed their brows and stared at her for a few long seconds. And then —

“Pearl,” they said. “My name is Pearl.”

“Right. Pearl. So why are you… are you going to the tower?”

Pearl snorted. “Why else would I be here?”

“I don't know, you might be just — you could be anyone,” Gem said. “I don't want to attack an innocent person.”

“You're planning to attack me?”

“You're planning to bring back the moon!”

The moon's champion rolled her eyes. “Yes, and I'm not hurting you or anything. Seems to me like you're the one being a problem here.”

“I'm not being a problem, I'm being the solution,” Gem corrected. She dug her knees a little deeper on either side of Pearl. “Why are you trying to bring back the moon?”

“I just think it's about time,” said Pearl. “The sun’s had its turn.”

Gem could feel the sun glowering behind her.

“And for good reason,” she said, agreeing with the silent message at her back. “You know what it was like back then, don’t you? Monsters and evils and all sorts. Do you really want that again?”

“That’s not what happened.”

They both stared at each other, frowning, until Pearl finally sighed and shook her head.

“Look, we’re both going the same way. Do you really want to keep fighting all the way there, or can we call it a truce?” she offered.

“It kinda looks like I’m at the advantage here,” Gem said.

Immediately, Pearl twisted her arm around, switching their positions so that she was now the one pinning Gem down. She raised a brow.

“Huh,” said Gem. “I see your point.”

“I’d say we’re quite evenly matched. What do you say we leave each other alone, at least until we come to an agreement about this whole moon business?”

Gem considered her options for a moment. To her, it did seem a fair move — after all, they couldn’t spend the whole journey in this ridiculous back-and-forth wrestling. As long as this other champion didn’t sabotage her, it was even reasonable.

The sun burned at her back.

“For now,” Gem decided. “And later, if you get in my way, we’ll re-evaluate.”

“Deal,” said Pearl.

“Great.” There was a pause. “Um, could you…?”

Pearl blinked, and then hurriedly shuffled off her. “Oh, right. Sorry about that.”

They both got up, still keeping their distance. Pearl brushed back her hair and tucked the flowers back into her hair; Gem, for her part, smoothed down her dress in order to have something to do as she waited for the other to make a move.

“See you around?” Pearl finally said.

Gem tilted her head. “Hopefully not.”

“Right, yeah. I guess not.”

There was an awkward pause. And then Pearl turned on her heel and kept walking down the bridge, looking a little heavier than she had when Gem first saw her.

After waiting for her to make it down a significant portion of the bridge’s walkway, Gem set off as well, only just in shouting distance from the other but otherwise directly behind. They crossed the bridge after a short further walk, and then each started down the path right beyond as well, heading away from the river and still down the same route.

*

Pearl wouldn’t have minded this walk so much if it wasn’t for the presence behind her.

Whoever that sun’s champion was — they hadn’t given her a name — they had been following her this entire time, all the way from that gorgeous bridge with the carvings of moons and stars along the sides to where they were now, ambling along the path beyond.

It made sense, since they were headed to the same place, but the problem was that feeling their gaze on her and knowing they were just however many paces behind was truly beginning to unnerve her. Looking back would make her seem more suspicious, but then not looking back really itched at her mind as well.

Seeing the forest in the distance was something of a saving grace, if anything. It was both a chance to duck out of the burning sunlight and an opportunity to find a route that could keep her a little further from the sun’s champion.

They approached the forest and Pearl could feel herself slowing down as she began to see just how tall it truly was. These were old, old trees, she realised; the trunks were the width of her own height, and the branches stretched out into a mesh of canopy above it all, the long-tangled roots forming a knobbly floor.

The sun’s champion didn’t slow as much, and soon enough had reached where Pearl was lingering.

“You’re not going in?” they called, still walking past.

Pearl’s eyes narrowed. “Of course I am! Hey, you can’t just overtake me!”

“Stop being slow, then,” the champion replied over their shoulder, and plunged into the forest.

“I’ll show you being slow,” Pearl muttered.

Without another moment wasted, she followed right behind, stepping into the forest and out of the light of day.

Inside of the forest, Pearl somehow felt even more uneasy than she had while outside.

The trees seemed to leer at her from all sides, leaning over the slight trench in the ground formed by the path and stretching tiny fingers in her way. The sun’s champion continued forwards as if unbothered, and Pearl had to wonder how they didn’t seem concerned at all.

At least it was an adventure, she supposed, almost stumbling over a tree root and righting herself just before the other champion turned to check on her.

“Are you alright back there?”

“I'm perfectly fine,” Pearl protested.

She took the opportunity to hurry up and try to pass them, but her foot caught itself in the hook below another root and she fell forwards with a slightly mortifying yell.

“Oh—!” The other champion moved faster than Pearl could even think to catch her. “Oh gosh, are you alright?”

“I told you I'm fine,” Pearl mumbled, now entirely mortified. She shrugged free of their grip and stood up properly, patting bits of twig from her arms. “Stupid trees. It's like they're trying to trip me up.”

Promptly, one of the tree branches – one that had been brushed aside earlier as the sun champion navigated past – swung back into place with a snap, only just missing Pearl's head.

“See? They're trying to kill me!” she exclaimed.

“Well, of course they are,” the other champion said matter-of-factly, and Pearl stared at them. “You did just insult them.”

“Yeah, after they kept tripping me up.”

The other champion shook their head. “You need to be friendly to them, and they'll return the favour. Didn't the moon champion before you tell you this?”

“What do you mean, the champion before me?”

“You know – whoever tried to get to the tower for the moon last time. I heard from the sun champion before me that there was someone from your, uh, side.”

“They—” Pearl stopped. Took a breath. “I didn’t know them. But they didn't come back.”

The other champion's eyes widened. Her mouth opened as if to say something and then closed again.

“They didn't—? What happened to them?” they finally asked, softly curious.

Pearl shrugged. “Who knows. I guess they died out there or something. Did your last champion kill them, maybe?”

“Of course he didn't, our job isn't to — well —” They cut themself off. “I hope not.”

In a way, their reaction reassured Pearl somewhat. At least it looked rather like they weren't going to try to kill her.

“I guess you haven't been given much guidance for this journey, then,” the other champion said.

“No, I wouldn't say I have.”

“Hm.” They stood still for a moment, then glanced up at the dark canopy above, where the sun was mostly obscured by layers and layers of intersecting leaves. “Pearl, I'd like to amend our deal.”

Pearl frowned, and then gestured for her to continue.

“We both have the same goal,” said the champion of the sun. “We both want to get to the tower, and we both need to take the same path. We're equally matched in combat, but…”

“But?”

They sighed. “It's still not a fair contest. I've been given a lot of advice and…” Looking up, they indicated the sky. “I have the home advantage.”

“So what do you propose?” asked Pearl, not yet daring to be hopeful.

“Let's work together,” they said.

“Work together?”

“We help each other, and we keep each other company, at least until we get to the tower. There's a town near it, and then it's all easy walking from there. We could split up when we reach the town.”

Pearl thought about it for a bit. It sounded like… well, it sounded like less of a chance to shake the other champion from her tail, and yet more of a chance to make it out of this and actually get to the tower in one piece.

“Okay,” she said. “But on one condition.”

“What condition?” they asked cautiously.

Pearl grinned. “If you're going to be my travelling companion, I'm going to need to at least know your name.”

*

Having someone to walk with wasn't quite what Gem had expected. She'd honestly not spent much time with people in recent years — besides Sausage, of course, but she had always had Sausage. She'd never had someone new to talk to. That's what it was.

Pearl was an excellent conversationalist, she realised quickly. She swam through topics with ease, seamlessly moving from their surroundings to some story from her village, and then pointing back to the path to continue discussions of what they could see from here. Gem felt as though she was tripping her way through her sentences herself, but Pearl didn't seem to mind all that much.

There were a few forks in the forest path, and Gem pointed them towards the right ones whenever they appeared, so at least she did feel as if she was contributing in some way.

The deeper they got into the forest, the hotter it seemed to get. Whatever heat the sun was giving was multiplied tenfold under the closed roof of the trees. Gem wondered if it was meant to be a message, a nudge to hurry up a little or a reminder of the time left. Whatever it was, it wasn't helpful; they couldn't go any faster than they were without risking falling over a root or angering the trees in some way.

And then, of course, there were the trees.

They seemed indifferent to Gem, for the most part. This was an agreement, after all. She wouldn't bother the trees, and the trees wouldn't bother her. Occasionally, when Gem would comment on how pretty a tree looked with moss climbing up towards its leaves, she would find a cluster of berries in that tree and then get smacked lightly in the back by another for her troubles.

Pearl was learning too, though, and it was slightly incredible how quickly she figured out how to casually flatter one of the trees without offending another, and how to recognise the attributes trees did and did not like to be noticed. By the time they had spent a good few days in the forest, she was practically a natural.

The heat was really getting stifling, though, and after around the third day of walking Gem stopped to adjust what she was wearing. She had a spare pair of shorts and a shirt in her bag, and she asked Pearl to turn around long enough for her to change into them and wipe the sweat from her skin.

“Done?” Pearl called from where she had been staring resolutely at a tree.

“Yep, pretty much!” Gem replied.

Pearl turned around and nodded approvingly. “I like that a lot better. Less obnoxious embroidered suns and all of that.”

“Hey, I quite like the embroidered suns,” Gem protested.

“Uh huh,” said Pearl. She took a few paces forward. “Let me see the label on that shirt?”

Gem cocked her head in confusion, but offered out the bottom of her shirt anyway, turning it up a little to reveal the stitched writing underneath. She'd never understood the little symbols there — besides the one indicating how warm the water in which the clothing would be rinsed should be — but Pearl read them over with ease.

“Here,” she said, taking the label in her fingers and pointing to a small crescent in the corner. “See? The moon isn't all that bad. You've been wearing it all along.”

“Unknowingly, sure.”

“I’m still counting it as a—”

Pearl paused as she glanced up at Gem, and it was only then that she realised how close they were. Pearl's breath was warm in the hot air, almost uncomfortable on Gem's face, and she resisted the urge to shake her off.

She didn't get the chance.

Taking a step back, Pearl removed her hands from Gem's shirt and scratched the back of her neck nervously, redness unrelated to the heat crawling up her neck. “Sorry.”

“It's, uh—” Gem swallowed a little. “It’s alright. You were just showing me a label. No worries.”

They stood there for an odd few seconds, and then Gem remembered what she was doing and went to pack her dress into her bag and take out one of her water bottles.

“You faring okay in this temperature?” she asked, unscrewing the cap.

“It's fine. I have half my water bottle left, actually.”

“You only brought one?”

“I didn't think I'd need it so much,” Pearl admitted.

“I guess you wouldn't know,” said Gem. She looked thoughtfully at her own, and then made a decision. After fetching another — full — bottle, she offered it out to Pearl. “Here. We're not even halfway yet. You'll need it.”

“We're not even halfway?”

“Nope, that'll be when we get to the clearing.” She zipped up her bag and swung it back over her shoulder, and then turned just in time to see Pearl's eyes widen.

“What's… ‘the clearing’?” she said slowly.

Gem paused, hands still on the straps of her bag. How to explain the clearing, she wondered.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose it's sort of like a prison.”

“A prison?!”

“Yes. For the moon.”

She knew that would get Pearl excited, but she certainly didn't expect the other to bound forward and take Gem by the shoulders.

“The moon's there? I can finally see it?” she asked, excitement shining through her voice.

“I suppose so,” Gem said.

“Then what are we waiting for? We have a prisoner to go and visit!”

Even though she was meant to be keeping the moon in that very prison — even though she was terrified of what she would find there — Gem couldn't help but smile at Pearl's enthusiastic chatter as she tugged her onwards.

She could only hope it wouldn't fade when Pearl finally saw what the moon was truly like.

*

Pearl was dealing with the sudden increase in heat very well, she thought. Or at least, considerably well.

She'd taken off her cloak and hood long ago, and then rolled up her trousers and sleeves and then resorted to neatly tearing the sleeves off entirely. Gem had given her an odd look when she'd done that.

“What? It's a fashion statement,” Pearl had said.

In answer, Gem had just shrugged, and continued nibbling at one of her sandwiches.

Actually, the world was getting a little fuzzy, she observed. Time went on, and the moon got closer – presumably, hopefully – and she was beginning to realise that her vision was fizzing at the edges, losing its minute details.

But she was nothing if not determined, and she was going to free the moon.

It was when her eyes were practically fluttering shut, and when she could feel Gem's concerned eyes on her, that she saw the trees finally begins to grow more sparse.

“Is this it?” she tried, and then cleared her throat when she realised how rough her voice was. “Gem? Is this the clearing?”

“We're almost there, I think,” said Gem, pressing a hand to one of the trees as she carefully stepped past Pearl and led the way onwards.

The sky wasn't growing darker. Pearl wondered if she would even be able to see the moon against such a bright sky, with the jealous sun circling its territory endlessly.

But then —

Then the trees broke apart quite suddenly, and before the pair of women a magnificent sight opened up. Only a few hundred metres ahead of them, the grassy hill before them fell sharply down, and opened up into a great bowl-shaped valley, dark and shadowed but still glimmering slightly in the faint light. The bowl was far longer than it was wide, each side in fact disappearing past the edges of the world as if they were looking upon a ravine, making the journey across far shorter than one around it might be. All around, the grass seemed almost yellow, rather like hay.

In the sky, the sun made its appearance again, prowling somewhere near the horizon but still, with every step, lowering further and further. The rest of the world stretched into pink behind it, purple clouds tinted orange trailing around the hemisphere of the sky. It was awe-inspiring. She had never seen the sun so dim.

Pearl stopped short the moment she saw what was left in the sun's wake.

“It's right there,” she whispered.

And it was.

In the centre of the sky above them was the moon, a pale pebble at the bottom of a deep lake, shimmering in the distance. It was everything Pearl had ever dreamed of; clear of the shifting clouds, it stood out against the growing darkness, and Pearl could see the dimmest little dots where the stars would soon reveal themselves around it.

“It's beautiful,” she said. “Do you see that, Gem?”

“I do.”

She didn't sound nearly as excited as Pearl felt — but then again, she was a follower of the sun. Still, Pearl wasn't giving up on her quite that soon.

“Come on,” she urged, “let's go take a closer look.”

With a firm tug, she pulled Gem right forwards, hand in hand, deeper into the sunset and towards the dip ahead of them. Gem seemed to be dragging her feet as they got closer and closer, but Pearl paid it no heed. She'd understand, now — she'd understand why Pearl was fighting for this, what there was to gain from this change.

The ground fell away just before her, and she stood excitedly at the brink of the slope.

“Are you ready?” she whispered, and did not wait for an answer.

Gen did not follow, and Pearl could feel herself slip from her grip. “Wait — Pearl, no, wait—!”

Pearl did not stop fast enough to heed her warning. A few running steps more, and she was plunged into darkness. Gem vanished entirely behind her, and she was guided only by the faint light of the moon.

It hadn't been clear what was in this valley from outside, but now Pearl could see a little more. There were shapes in the distance, moving strangely through the darkness, grey against black. She was sure she could see the distant glow of red eyes, hear legs that skittered away.

The thing that caught her attention first was the unmistakable twang of a bow. Something swished behind her head, brushing close against her hair, and she realised with a start that someone had shot an arrow at her.

Was it Gem? She had been the only one nearby, but she definitely had not brought a bow — and besides, Gem seemed a just person. She wouldn't try to hurt Pearl, especially not now.

Then, she realised, it must have been something else within the little spot of night. Something that could see far, far better than her.

Even here, with the world she was trying to bring back, she was not on her own turf. Even here she would have to fight everything.

The moon glowed with promise above her.

“Hello?” she called. A thousand movements paused at her voice. “I'm here to help. I'm here to help all of you. I'm — I'm one of you.”

Eyes turned to her: red eyes and black eyes and glowing white eyes, flickering in her direction all at once.

“I'm on a quest. To bring back the moon,” she said.

There was a hiss, a groan, and the sound of dozens of bow pulling taut in unison, and it was exactly at that moment that Pearl realised what Gem had been referring to when she had said there were monsters in the night.

Pearl's hands shook a little as she drew her swords and stepped backwards.

A singular moment hung in the air between them all.

And then the first volley of arrows flew, and Pearl sprung into the fight alone.

*

Outside of the valley, Gem hovered by the slope and eyed the pitch darkness that stood like a wall before her.

She was rather used to seeing eerie things – not too long ago she had been selected by the sun itself, a circle of light forming around her like no uniform light was meant to do.

And all of her childhood, too, strange things had occurred in their village as the sun laid its hands upon their lives, warming their clothes when they left them out to dry, and lighting their fires without a need for them to even strike a match. It had been a blessed town, because they were the town that gave the sun its champions. Their days were eternal mornings, and the weather was never unpleasant, and to Gem the strangeness of the world had always been a comfort.

Now, the sun lounged lazily on the horizon and watched her stand at war with herself.

She knew of this clearing and its monsters – it was what she had been warned of most clearly – and that the only way through was to walk straight through, leaving a chain of fire along the way. It was such lights most monsters stayed away from, and such fires that destroyed them without ever needing to raise a sword.

Pearl would not know this. In fact, based on her eagerness, Gem was beginning to doubt that Pearl even knew about the monsters at all.

If she didn't do anything now, she'd be the only one able to even try to reach the tower.

If she didn't do anything now, Pearl would die.

It was a surprisingly easy decision to make.

She pulled out almost all of the torches she had brought from her bag and lit the first, then swept it past the others to light them all at the same time. The flames grew quickly beneath her fingers, and she carried the small furnace a small distance before her as she stepped into the trapped night.

Walking in with a bright light was perhaps a mistake, in retrospect. Immediately, she realised just how little she could see outside of her immediate vicinity, although she could hear scuttling and shuffling as things turned to pay her heed. She held the torches aloft and began to walk forward, feeling a lot like a deer that had just learnt to walk.

A few paces. A few more paces. Nothing yet. Then —

Something lashed at her, and she felt a blunt set of claws scrape against her arm. She yelped and then another thing grabbed at her leg, and then there was a hiss not far away, and as she tried to move away from it she felt the blast of an explosion that was a little too close for comfort.

She began to stumble forward into a run, half-forgetting what she’d come in here for and the use of the torches in her arms. All around her, monsters tilted toward her and gave chase, the sound of things flying around her and the feeling of various pains blending into a panicked terror.

The darkness pressed in on her. This was what she’d been so afraid of. She’d been afraid and she’d been right.

She tried to pick up the pace as best she could. Something pulled at her shirt, grabbing her not far from the label Pearl had pointed out earlier and holding tight. She moved to push it off and her hand met rough, decaying skin; she withdrew her hand on impulse and it pulled at her in that moment of hesitation, making her scream and draw further attention to herself.

And then, like an angel from the depths of the darkness, a shape emerged from before her and into her pool of light, two curved swords silhouetted in the torchlight. They moved like oil in water, spreading their arms and cutting down the shapes around them. Behind them, their cloak swept back and forth, great and dark and mesmerising even as it floated over the bodies they left behind.

It took a long moment for Gem to realise it was Pearl.

She was stunning, spinning around at any sound and slicing easily through the neck of whatever figure was behind her. Gem couldn’t even move as she watched, eyes glued to the swing of Pearl’s shoulders and the arcing curve of her swords.

Sooner than she was ready, Pearl got close enough for the light to illuminate her face in a golden glow that didn’t reach further up than her eyes. She felled the thing that was clawing at Gem and then looked back up at her.

“Are you okay?” she asked Gem, and Gem nodded quickly, unable to conjure words. “Good. Come on — let’s get going.”

After sheathing one of her swords, she took Gem’s hand, warm and familiar, and led her through the re-gathering crowd of monsters, her other hand still wielding the other sword. As fast as they came towards Gem’s light, Pearl destroyed them where they stood.

Finally remembering the point of the lights, Gem freed her hand from Pearl’s and picked out one of the torches, tossing it behind them. The monsters screeched away from the flames as they burst into life in the grass where the torch landed.

Pearl took her arm instead, and the pair made their way onwards, Pearl fighting while Gem threw fire behind them. Less and less monsters approached as they got further in, and then before she knew it Gem realised they were now climbing upwards instead of going down a slope.

A few minutes more passed in that darkness, flames roaring behind them and monsters wailing all around. By the time they were near the edge of the bowl, Pearl had sheathed her other sword too, putting all her energy into getting out of there fast. Gem stopped throwing her torches, too, and as the other side of the darkness became apparent in its opacity ahead of them, she even allowed herself a breath of relief.

She did not hesitate to cross the border and leave the monstrous night and the wildfire she had lit within it behind.

Pearl did not come with her immediately. Her hand was on Gem’s elbow, so Gem was sure she would follow her, yet it seemed she was still looking back.

Another minute passed. Finally, Pearl emerged, her gaze distant and one of her hands still gripping a sheathed sword.

“I’m sorry,” said Gem. “I thought you knew.”

Pearl didn’t react.

“This is why I didn’t want you to…” Gem trailed off. It didn’t feel like the right time to bring it up. If anything, it might sound like gloating, but instead Gem just felt grief for lost shine in Pearl’s eyes.

She put out the rest of the torches by stomping them out a little against the ground, the only sound on this side of the valley. Meanwhile, Pearl remained unmoving and looking out at the night behind them.

“What were those things?” she asked, eventually.

Gem glanced up. “The monsters?”

“Monsters. I guess they really were,” Pearl murmured. She stood thoughtfully a little longer. “And that’s… what happens at night?”

“Yes,” said Gem. “That’s… it’s my job to make sure they don’t leave that place.”

“It’s not just a prison for the moon. It’s a prison for those things too.”

Gem supposed Pearl was right.

“And the moon,” Pearl continued, “is the unwilling guest in their prison cell. And I’m going to set it free, no matter what.”

“Pearl,” Gem said despairingly. “Come on, that can’t be what you took from that.”

“The stories I used to hear told me the sky was more beautiful for having the stars in it. I’ll gladly take the fear that comes with it.” Pearl turned away from the valley, and over to where the clearing turned once more into thick forest. “You can’t convince me that living in the sun all of the time is any better.”

“What do you mean, Pearl, it’s—”

“Look at this,” Pearl interrupted sharply.

She pointed at the yellowed grass that surrounded the darkness. Then she gestured to the trees at the edge of the clearing too, dark and burnt in places as if they had been burnt by the blaze within already — although, of course, they had looked the same on the other side as well, and so were not caused by the fires Gem had made.

“Do you really think this is all because the night is trapped in there?” Pearl said. “This is the result of burning. Like those—” She gestured at the torches, now put out, in Gem’s hands. “—or like that.”

And here she pointed to the red sky, where the sun was once more beginning to rise. It glowered dimly, a distant fruit hanging low from a tree.

“Isn’t it obvious what happened here?”

If it was meant to be, Gem didn’t understand. “I don’t — I don’t know what you mean, Pearl.”

“This prison didn’t hold the moon forever. Before that, there was the sun, and it was trapped in here. Right?”

“Right,” Gem assented, her voice sounding faint even to her.

“And when it was, it did this.” Pearl waved her hand at the grass again. “I don’t imagine that was a lot of fun for anyone to walk through either. It kind of seems like it was just hellish.”

It would have been a world of fire and heat, Gem realised. This valley was a choice between monsters in the dark and nothing but burning air.

And here, beneath her feet, the very evidence that the latter had happened.

“Trapping either in a prison would bring out their worst,” Pearl said. “So: no. I’m not giving up. I just know what I’m signing up for, and I’m going to do it anyway.”

With that, she slotted her sheathed swords back onto either side of her backpack, and marched right back into the forest, the trees swallowing her up greedily.

Gem glanced back at the valley. She looked up at the moon, sitting quiet and still, right at the centre of the sky. Doubt sunk its teeth into her mind.

She looked back out at the sun, and for the first time she wondered if it might not deserve its eternal seat in the sky.

There was no reply from the sun. Of course there wasn’t.

Gem sighed, and followed Pearl back into the forest.

*

This time, Pearl barely paid attention to the trees. She was too focused, too distracted from the route to even note what she passed by. Now and then she’d throw out a cursory compliment as she ducked under a thick spruce branch, but apart from that all she could think of was the image of the monsters descending on Gem.

As much as she recognised their diverging goals, it had really struck her deep to see the other at the centre of all of that violence. She’d come in with a huge light for some godforsaken reason, and then gone and set the whole place ablaze. Pearl wasn’t sure whether to feel frustrated or awed or terrified.

The telltale sound of light footsteps followed behind her.

And then there was that: Gem was still with her. Even though she’d made it so clear that she wasn’t going to change her mind, and even though she’d gone and declared the sun just as dangerous as the monsters they’d barely scraped through, she was still here.

She didn’t understand it. At the same time, she didn’t want it to change. If Gem wasn’t with her, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d have the same determination to keep going.

When she finally took a break to rest, Gem stopped with her and sat down, cross-legged, keeping watch as she shuffled back against a tree and pulled out something to eat.

“Only another day of travel left,” Gem piped up, still softly.

Pearl hummed her acknowledgement, and they fell back into silence.

After some time, Gem sighed and picked up the edge of her shirt, turning it up to look at the label again. Pearl noted that this part of her shirt was half-destroyed, thick claw marks ripping the edges into tatters. The label was not spared, either; the place where the little stitched moon had been was left with only empty space.

“It’s a shame,” Gem said, “that they took off that little label. I was growing really fond of it.”

“Of the label that gave instructions on how to wash and dry it?”

Gem shrugged one shoulder. “Well, the plan was that it would always remind me of your humiliating loss after I beat you to the tower.”

“After you beat me to the tower?” Pearl exclaimed, gasping with faux offence. “I’ll have you know that I’m going to get in there long before you even set foot inside. You’ll spend the next ten years wishing you’d never made this deal to help me.”

“I doubt that,” Gem said. She was grinning, and Pearl felt something leap in her stomach. “We’ve had some good times so far, Pearl.”

“Even while being chased by moon monsters?”

“Especially while being chased by moon monsters.” Gem turned her head a little, looking resolutely at a nearby bush. “If you’d looked that intimidating the first time we’d met, I would’ve given up right there.”

“Oh yeah? You thought I looked intimidating in there?”

With a short laugh, Gem returned her gaze to Pearl. “Yeah, I think I fell a little bit in love with you, actually.”

That, Pearl reminded herself very firmly, was definitely a joke. It was certainly, absolutely, definitely a joke, yet she could still feel a blush rising in her face.

“I hear that a lot,” she said, pushing her embarrassment into overconfidence. “That’s why I had to save it for in there. If I was swinging those things everywhere I went I’d just have everyone falling over themselves for me. And we can’t have that.”

“Right,” Gem agreed. “It’d get way too inconvenient.”

They both giggled at that, and Pearl forgot her momentary fluster in the light of the new conversation that succeeded it.

The journey lasted another day, as Gem predicted, before the trees got thinner and the canopy above them grew sparser. Between the thin branches, the sun felt warmer than usual — even more than when they’d been entering the forest before and Pearl had realised quite how much of an issue it might end up being.

They emerged from the forest, and instantly Pearl could feel the sun bearing down on her more heavily than ever before.

Her vision blurred a little a few minutes into the walk. Gem didn’t seem affected at all, though Pearl didn’t think much of it. Gem had grown up embracing this kind of warmth, and so surely it was easy for her to deal with it. All that Pearl had to do was drink a little more water.

She reached back for the water bottle Gem had lent her, and brought it forward only to be disappointed by the few drops left inside. This wouldn’t last her long, she knew, but she wasn’t going to ask Gem for anything more now.

No other choice left open to her, she kept walking along the path, focusing as best she could on just placing one foot in front of the other rather than the dizziness in her head. It was fine. It was perfectly fine. She just had to keep going.

The dizzying sensation of thirst grew with every step she took, until it buzzed over her thoughts and the world faded into a mosaic of grey.

*

Gem watched in horror as Pearl swayed in the wave of heat, slowing to a stop quite suddenly just paces away from her.

“Pearl? Are you—?”

She didn't even get to finish before Pearl was collapsing before her. Instinctively she grabbed her and lowered her to the floor more gently, one hand moving to her forehead to check her temperature.

“You have heatstroke,” she realised. “But how did it come on so quickly?”

A small sigh left Pearl's lips, and Gem noted how dry they looked. She needed water – badly.

She reached into her backpack to pick up a water bottle and unscrewed the cap. But as she lifted it to pour some into Pearl's mouth, the water began to vanish, steam billowing from the top as it bubbled away before her very eyes, up into the sky where the sun smirked down.

It was the sun. The sun was the thing harming her.

The water bottle crumpled in her hand as it scorched in the sun, and Gem hissed at the sudden burning in her hands, dropping the bottle immediately.

Not only was the sun trying to stop them, but it was playing dirty.

“Stop,” Gem said, half to herself. And then, louder, directed up at the relentless sun: “Stop! Stop it!”

As if to spite her, the light flashed into her eyes in a way it never had before, blinding her for a few seconds as she blinked away the brightness.

For all of her life, she had never had to fight against the sun. But now, here – this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. They had the same goal, and shouldn't they get the same chance to reach it?

Clutching Pearl a little closer to her, Gem turned back up to the sun and stared right into its eye.

“She hasn't done anything wrong!” she yelled. The air pulsed with heat, leaves shivering in the sparse trees around them. “She's like me, or any of us.”

The heat did not stop, and Gem moved to shade Pearl with her coat, her movements careful. Desperation crawled up her throat as she noticed how red Pearl's skin had already become.

“She just wants. There's nothing wrong with that!”

Nothing. Nothing, and nothing, and Gem could feel her patience slipping.

“If you don't stop — if you don't leave her alone—” she started.

Then what? The sun seemed to watch condescendingly.

Gem's temper lost itself somewhere between one moment and the next, bubbling up like the water in her bottle and crumpling into rage.

“I won't go to the tower. I'll just go home, and then what will you do?” she shouted.

There was a pause in the air, the leaves stilling and the rising temperatures pausing.

“I’ll abandon the mission,” Gem added, just to be sure. “I'd go home and tell everyone to forget the whole thing. What happens when we don't relight your flame at the tower, hm?”

And then finally — finally — the sunlight eased. A cloud rolled across the sky, and the sun vanished behind it only to emerge a little dimmer than usual.

It would have been amusing to see the sun act as if it had been scolded thoroughly, if Gem wasn't more worried about the woman in her arms. Pearl lay motionless and dry, and Gem's last water bottle had completely been emptied. Just getting her out of here would be difficult enough.

They weren’t far from the forest, luckily, and it looked like their best bet. She hefted Pearl into her arms and began to head back again, staggering with the weight and the lingering heat from the sun’s outburst.

It felt like the longest walk of her life. Pearl’s head lolled, and her heartbeat was loud and rapid against Gem’s palms. The sun was no help and the moon was not there. Sweat gathered at her forehead, dripped down the sides of her face, soaked the back of her neck beneath her hair. Still she did not stop; she couldn’t let Pearl down, not even for a moment.

The trees came into full view again, and Gem fixed her eyes on one of the taller oak trees, with its long heavy boughs forming a shade right beneath. Right there, she decided, she would be able to put Pearl down.

Above her, the sun circled anxiously, clouds rolling before it as if hiding it from view. Gem paid it no more attention than that.

She arrived at the treeline after an eternity, and placed Pearl carefully on the bed of moss presented to her at her arrival.

“Thank you,” she managed to say between pants, and heard a branch shake above her, dripping light droplets onto her hair.

She peered out again, looking up at the sky, and once again called out to the sun.

“You have to help us,” she shouted. “You did this, so you have to help her. Give us rain, or be a little less warm, or something.”

There was another minute of nothing, in which the great tree turned its attention to brushing cool leaves against Pearl’s brow, letting them flutter down from its canopy.

And then, so gradually that it almost seemed shy, it began to rain.

It hit the arid ground around them and the trees above, and Gem managed to pull Pearl out from under the shade and into the light pattering. She then got to work with her water bottles, collecting the rainwater and tucking them into her bag again.

After that, she kept an eye on Pearl and waited for her to wake.

*

When Pearl was younger, she’d loved the rain like any child. Her parents had given her a wide-brimmed hat and a long cloak, each made from the kind of material that water ran off easily, and every time the dark clouds rolled in and poured rain into their village she would go outside to dance in it. The sound of puddles splish-splash-ing beneath her heels was the percussion for her glee.

She would look up at the sky, content, and feel the raindrops falling softly on her face. It was the most peaceful she ever felt.

Now, she blinked into consciousness slowly to feel rain on her cheeks and to see clouds rolling across the sky.

Someone was humming nearby — a rain song, she realised, and the very same she had been singing on the walk by the river. She remembered being taught this song by her mother, after a long few hours in the rain, as she sat on the table and drank the mead her family had set out to warm her up. Her mother did not have a voice particularly made to sing, but Pearl loved it anyway when she would. There was a joy in it that she seldom felt from her mother on most days, a freedom from her weaving and a step towards a world she dreamed of.

Her mother didn't sing so much for her anymore, now that she was older. Often, it would be the other way around. Less often, they might even sing together, exchanging a secretive smile when they realised they were both humming the same tune as they worked.

But she was not at her home, and this voice was not her mother's.

She glanced towards the direction of the voice. “Gem?”

A few feet away from her, Gem was focused on a sturdy, long branch in her hands, carefully running over it with a pocket knife so that thin slivers of wood peeled off and dropped to the ground beneath. A sword, Pearl realised.

At Pearl's call, however, she glanced up and smiled.

“Morning,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel…” Pearl paused to consider. “Sort of dry? Why is my throat so dry?”

Gem nodded. “No, that does sound about right. You got, uh — dehydrated.”

“Dehydrated? I don't even remember…”

She'd been walking down the path, she recalled. But had she dreamt that? They were now in the forest again, after all — perhaps they'd never left.

Gem winced and pointed up at the dim glow from behind one of the clouds, where the sun was hiding.

Ah, Pearl thought. That would make a lot more sense.

“It's calmed down now, though,” Gem explained. “I had a little word with it.”

“With the sun?”

“It sounds ridiculous but just — bear with me, okay? It's been listening to me.” Gem gestured at the water bottles and then at where the trees were dripping quickly and heavily. “That’s why it’s raining.”

After a moment of consideration, she turned back to Pearl and gently moved a lock of hair from where it had been plastered to her face, tucking it behind her ear. Pearl couldn’t take her eyes off her. Gem’s braid had come undone and her hair cascaded down past her cheeks, her attentive gaze looking out from between two curtains of auburn.

“We should get going soon,” Gem said softly, though Pearl barely processed the meaning of the words. “We’re running low on food, and there’s still quite a distance to go. If we keep up our pace for another few days, I think we can get to the tower in plenty of time.”

“In plenty of time?” Pearl repeated. She was still half-dazed, but those words stuck out to her.

“Well,” said Gem, “the torch goes out on its own in a week or so.”

“It does?”

Could it be that easy? Pearl was struck with the thought of just slowing them down, keeping Gem from that tower, yet almost immediately felt a surge of reluctance to betray her now. Even if she didn’t want her to succeed, she — she couldn’t do that to her.

Not now. Not after all of this.

“I don’t know what happens if I don’t get there,” Gem went on. “Or what happens to all the people. I know you don’t want it back, but… where does that leave us? Everything we’ve ever made has been built around the day. How are people going to deal with that? I know it isn’t fair to keep the moon stuck in there. I know it seems harsh, but — what else are we meant to do?”

Pearl didn’t say anything.

In her mind, it would change everything. For the people of her village it would finally mean the return of their dreams. There would be monsters but there would be change. For so, so long there had not been any change.

Looking at Gem now, at the fear set in her pretty eyes, Pearl’s first thought was ‘same old, same old’.

Her second thought was more of an action, as she raised herself onto her elbows and kissed her.

Rain fell all around them even as they kissed. Pearl could feel it on the backs of her fingers as she moved a hand to pull Gem closer. She could taste it on Gem’s lips, salty and cool. When they parted, she could see it still dripping from Gem’s hair, out of the corner of her eyes as she focused on the blush on Gem’s cheeks.

There was a breath of a moment, and then Gem leaned in again to press another kiss to her lips, and then another, and then another, pulling her up to sit beside her and pressing close. They kissed like they wouldn’t get another chance, and Pearl could feel herself melting away.

The rain slowly pattered away, and Gem hugged Pearl to her chest, resting her head on her shoulder.

“I don’t want to have to fight you,” Pearl mumbled into her hair.

“Neither do I.”

There was a pause.

“But we’ll still do it,” Pearl said.

“Yes,” Gem replied, and there were tears in her voice. “We will.”

It didn’t feel like a deal, or an agreement, or a compromise. It didn’t feel like gaining anything at all.

*

Their next stop was to be a town called Twilight Town, some place right by the tower with food and supplies and a few beds to lie on. Gem had heard a little about it, with its eerie streets and silent houses, and from the sound of it there wasn’t a lot happening.

On one hand, she would appreciate a distraction that would come from a more bustling town. There was a tension between Pearl and herself now that hadn’t been there before, like a looming countdown.

On the other hand, she knew she would also appreciate the time with her.

The walk there would be long, though. Despite the rain having ended some time back, the sky was still thick with clouds. It was good weather to walk in, after all the heat they’d endured. Still, it was dreary.

Gem had managed to distil the rainwater she’d collected earlier with the sun’s help, and she now split it between the two of them as they made their way onwards. Now and then they would stop to ration out the rest of the food they’d brought. Sometimes, they’d take turns to rest as best they could on the grass by the path.

It was always light, but the small moments the pair would keep to themselves felt the brightest.

As they passed a small lake, Pearl paused to appreciate it and Gem pressed a quick peck to her cheek before hurrying forwards with a laugh that the other couldn’t catch up to whack her fast enough to stop. A few hours later Pearl shuffled behind her as they were both eating and hugged her from behind, warm against her back and teasing over her shoulder.

And sometimes, sometimes, they would tangle their fingers together as they walked down the road, like a secret hidden between the two of them, even if there was nobody to see it.

So it went, little moments reserved for themselves hidden between the hours of their respective quests.

One thing Gem began to notice as they went on was that the path was getting clearer.

There were little twists and turns in which other small paths would often branch off, and the further they went the larger these other paths would get. It made it trickier to navigate and yet Gem always felt she knew which way exactly to go. At first she wondered if it was some innate knowledge given to her as champion of the sun, and then she saw the boundary where the paths split was lit by a faint light.

The sun, she realised, was lighting their way.

It made sense for it to want them to get there, so Gem could relight the torch at all, but for some reason the way that the act felt so quiet in comparison to its usual manner touched her.

As Pearl was sleeping one morning, she glanced up at the clouds where the white light was strongest.

“You’re doing this?” she asked, nodding to the road.

The sun peered out from behind the clouds briefly, and Gem smiled.

“Thank you. I’ll do my best for you. I promise.”

Quickly the clouds rushed past again to hide the sun from her, but something about its renewed glow seemed pleased.

They travelled along the passes between mountains and through endless plains of grass. When they reached a deep river that stretched either side of them until it crossed the horizons, Pearl took Gem’s hand and helped her wade through the deep waters, with her own feet strong and sure and her grip tight. The closer they got, the stronger the path seemed to glow. The closer they got, the less sure Gem was that she wanted to arrive at all.

But of course, all things must come to a close.

In the distance, lights flickered in the late morning haze. The first sign of civilisation since she had left her little village at the corner of the world, with her bees and Sausage and everything else that now felt so distant.

“We’re here,” Gem said, squeezing Pearl’s hand. She felt Pearl press back firmly. “Twilight Town.”

*

Dusk hung low over the town as they approached.

The sky was a deep indigo, the hint of stars fading in and out of view all across the canvas of the sky. It was a moment between night and day; a place devoid of sun and moon.

Just outside of the town, the last of the sunlit path faded away, and Pearl could see just how plain it looked without the light. The same path she had started on, sure, but… something was different. Since then, she felt like she gained so much. Changed, maybe.

She hovered near the edge of the sun's domain, Gem by her side, and made a split second decision.

“Hey,” she said, eyes fixed on the sunlight dappling the path behind her. “You didn't have to help us as much as you did, but… you did. So — thanks.”

The light flickered approvingly, and then slunk back into the sky, leaving the path entirely bare besides the pools of orange where streetlamps scattered across it some way ahead of them.

Pearl waited as Gem looked up to the sun and gave it her own silent farewell. Then she turned, nodded at Pearl, and led the way into the town's bounds.

As they began to get closer, it became more and more apparent that Twilight Town was more of a fragment than a town itself. The roads stretched into nothing; signs for old circuses fluttered against streetlamps, never taken down even though the date of the circus was long past; their feet laid fresh tracks in the dusty path, a pair of footprints sticking close together.

A single figure stood at the edge of the town, adorning a dark cloak and clutching a lamp in their hand. They looked up, and Pearl saw whites where their pupils should have been, brown skin stretched over a skeletal face.

“You are here,” they said, addressing Gem as the two of them entered hearing range. “To relight the torch, I assume?”

“Yes. And Pearl is here to stop me.”

The figure looked over at Pearl, eyes narrowed a little. “I see.” They paused, and glanced down at their joined hands. “That is quite unusual. Usually we don’t see the moon champion get this far at all.”

“Well,” Pearl said with some defiance, “I’m pretty good at this.”

For a second, the cloaked figure just looked at her, reactionless.

But then their face cracked into a smile, and they chuckled lowly and gestured for the two to enter.

“I prepared the inn for you,” they informed them. “There is dinner on the table and two rooms reserved upstairs. If you have any problems, call for the innkeeper.”

At this, they gestured to themself, indicating that this was their role.

“I look forward to hosting you. Seeing you both here that gives me hope,” they finished. “When you are ready, call for me.”

They stepped backwards and into the shadow of one of the nearby buildings that circled the town, vanishing entirely from view.

Pearl and Gem stared after them in confusion.

“Huh,” Pearl finally said. “That person was a bit weird, right?”

“Absolutely,” Gem agreed. “What did they mean, they have ‘hope’?”

“Sounds like they’re on my side.”

Gem nudged her sharply. “That is not what that means.”

“Well, it sure sounds like it,” Pearl snarked.

“Pearl.”

“Gem,” Pearl answered, copying her exact tone. “Are we going to this inn or not?”

With a huff, Gem tugged Pearl further along the path, and they headed deeper into the dim streetlight.

The inn was a small, old building just like the rest, although its front door was wide open and the smell of fresh bread wafted out from inside. Pearl wasn’t even thinking about it as she entered immediately, pulling Gem behind her as she followed the smell right to the dining table where everything was laid out.

“They had this prepared fast,” Gem commented, as Pearl sat down and started to pick up various foods for her plate.

“I’m so hungry,” Pearl replied, a large bite of seeded bread already in her mouth. “Come join in!”

Laughing, Gem sat opposite her and helped herself to some of the dishes as well, some bread and butter and various roasted vegetables in covered dishes. The pair both began to eat, each so hungry that they didn’t even talk until they were mostly finished with their food.

As she eventually began to feel more full, Pearl put down her cutlery and took a glance around the room. It was a quaint little room, with neat paintwork of white walls and brown, polished window ledges and tables. There were little ornaments cluttered on every shelf space available, as well as a small bar tucked into the corner, all brightly coloured taps and tall glasses.

Gem noticed Pearl’s pause and laid her own cutlery down as well, placing them very intentionally on her plate.

“It feels odd to have dinner,” she said. “It feels like such an… evening meal.”

“I didn’t even know you knew what evening was,” Pearl grinned.

“It’s complicated! It’s — sometimes we call it that, but only when it’s cloudy or — we don’t really time it, you know?”

“Well, what do you think of it?” Pearl tapped her foot against Gem’s under the table.

“It’s nice,” Gem said. She gestured at the wine she’d poured for herself. “This is less nice, though. I never really had it back home, and I’m not sure it was worth all the fuss after all.”

Pearl shrugged slightly. “Maybe. But it’s worth trying these things, right?”

“I suppose.” Gem gave her a tap back with her foot. “You would say that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Well, you and your adventures, and your new things…”

The evening descended into chatter like this, meaningless back and forth about the food or the recent walk or almost anything but the task ahead. They headed upstairs once they were both yawning heavily, and wordlessly decided to both take the same room.

Pearl placed her bag down and untied her hair, putting the hair tie back in the bag and then turning to see if Gem was settled down yet.

To her surprise, Gem was looking right back at her, one hand on the blankets of the bed. She looked a little shy.

“Do you mind sharing? We could cuddle up, maybe?”

“Cuddling is always a great idea for people to think about, and I for one approve of such things if the cuddling in question involves me,” Pearl replied, her words falling over themselves a little.

Gem giggled. “So that’s a yes?”

“As long as it doesn’t delay us, I suppose,” Pearl said, which was a roundabout way of saying absolutely, yes.

“We still have a few days. Come on.”

Burying herself under the covers, Gem peeked out and waited for Pearl to join her, opening her arms out to accept her as she did. Pearl bundled up to her, warm and soft.

A few days. A few days, and this would all be over.

She closed her eyes, and did her best to think only of the present.

*

If it was difficult to fathom the thought of having to fight Pearl before, it was almost impossible now.

Since their first night at the inn, they had been spending their days wandering the town's various buildings and meeting the strange inhabitants there. Each one seemed excited to see them, offering their services and chattering about various previous champions they'd met. Gem recognised a few names from stories and advice she'd heard from her own village, but Pearl listened with rapt attention, clearly new to all of them.

The innkeeper didn't show their face much, apart from at mealtimes to lay out the table. They would disappear before either Gem or Pearl could even thank them, and only reappear at the next meal. It became like an odd little routine for them.

One day, Gem called out just as the innkeeper was leaving the room after setting out dinner.

“Hold on!” she called, as the door closed behind them. “Innkeeper!”

The door swung open immediately, and the innkeeper re-entered with a smooth smile.

“Yes? Are you ready for my advice?”

“Wh—?” Gem broke off. She'd only meant to thank them for the meal, but now she wondered what they meant. “Uh — yes. Yes, I am. That is… what I was going to ask about, yes.”

“Good. Come this way,” said the innkeeper, and after a quick glance at each other the pair of champions followed.

They led them out of the dining room and into the sitting area. Gem had been here before with Pearl; it was a particular favourite spot for the pair of them after dinner, as the fire was always lit and blazing merrily by the time they were done. This time, however, it was unlit, and the innkeeper went over to light it by hand, striking a match with sharp efficiency and tossing it into the fireplace.

As the logs burst into flame, they turned and gestured Gem and Pearl to the couch before them.

“There is a lot to cover, and not a lot of time,” they said. “What do you two know about the time before the sun?”

Gem looked at Pearl, and saw her own wariness reflected back at her.

“Well,” Gem said, “that was when there was night. The moon, the monsters…”

“Yes,” the innkeeper nodded. They turned to Pearl. “And you?”

“Sorry?”

“What do you know about those times?”

Pearl tapped lightly at the armrest of her side of the couch. “They were times of change. It was beautiful. You could see the stars. That's what I was told.”

“Also correct,” said the innkeeper.

They turned to the fire and stared into it with blank eyes, hands folded behind their back. The space between Pearl and Gem felt further than it had been in days.

“The eternal night was also a time of trouble,” they began. “Monsters roamed the world without fear, but the people grew strong against them. They built houses and walls, created defences and trained fighters. There was upheaval and change, and there was rest like no living being would now remember. There was cold like no living being now can know, as well.”

They turned to pace the room, still talking, and Gem felt an odd sinking in her stomach.

“You will have to stand in the torch itself and light it from within. Whether it is day or night you seek, you still must light it. You won’t be hurt by it, even though it will look dangerous to step into. Stand there and wait, and the power you will need will arrive to you. Beyond that I do not know, but I do know that you will have to choose well.

“The days of old were not a time to be sought after. Nor is the time that exists now. Nothing can be achieved without something being lost. You cannot have everything that you wish for.” They turned to the couch with the two of them, brow set with lines. “Do you understand? A compromise must be made. You cannot have everything you wish for.”

Gem understood completely.

What she wanted was to keep the sun in the sky, to help her people, and to have Pearl. Something would have to give. Something would have to be lost.

She looked down at her lap, at her hands clasped together, and knew deep inside which she would choose.

*

Pearl couldn’t sleep.

After their talk with the innkeeper, neither of them had been hungry, so they'd come straight upstairs. Gem hadn't looked at her once. As she had tucked herself into bed without Pearl, the latter felt an awful lurch in her chest.

She did not want to fight Gem. She did not want to even think about it for another day. And yet, undeniably, she knew that Gem would still stick to her cause, and that there was no easy way out.

Well — there was one easy way out.

It was why Pearl couldn't sleep now. She tossed and turned as she thought about it, rolling the idea around in her head. Beside her, Gem slept soundly, oblivious to her internal battle.

At some time too soon to wake, Pearl came to a decision.

She couldn't have everything she wished for, so she wasn't going to wait only to lose them.

*

Some hours later, Gem woke up to an empty bed.

Normally this wouldn't surprise her — she'd never had someone she lived with back in her village, and since she was announced the next champion of the sun people seemed to keep a fair distance from getting too attached to her.

But here in Twilight Town, where she and Pearl were meant to venture together, it was very unusual indeed.

Pearl hadn't gotten up before her in the past few days; she would wait for Gem to wake up gradually, watching her eyes flutter open in the faint streetlight let through the curtain. After a few minutes of quiet talk or even just quiet on its own, they would stretch and get up slowly, with time and affection both on their side.

Gem pulled herself up so she could scan the room a little better. There was her bag, and the clothes Pearl had washed last night still lying on the heated pipes at the back of their room, and the sword Gem had carved out for herself back at the edge of the forest. But gone was everything else Pearl owned: her weapons and her bag and her entire self, all carefully collected and taken away.

One part of Gem wanted to believe that she had just moved to another room so as to reinstate their separation. Another, more tired part knew exactly where Pearl had actually gone.

She forced herself out of bed and got ready for the day quickly, taking a small breakfast from the innkeeper with a quick thanks and packing it in her bag as she left. Her sword was tied to the side of her bag, ready to be used at a moment's notice, and she lit a torch to hold in one hand as she went.

“Your friend has already left,” the innkeeper told her as she stepped out of the inn, torch held aloft.

“I know,” said Gem. “I'm going to stop her.”

The innkeeper's brows furrowed. “I worry for the two of you. But I have faith.” They placed a hand on their heart and nodded, and Gem could read hope in their blank eyes. “There is no good choice for you, but there is one for all of us. Good luck.”

With that, they stepped away, and Gem rolled back her shoulders in an attempt to ease the pressure from them.

There was something the innkeeper was trying to tell her, but she couldn't quite figure it out. Not now, with adrenaline pumping through her, and betrayal biting at her mind.

Regardless, she had a quest to finish.

She turned away and began the walk to the edge of the town, out of the other end where the path continued. She walked on, steady and sure, onward even as the sky grew darker and darker still and the world seemed to hold its breath. As she crested a hill of lavender fields, breathing in the thick fumes and breathing out heavily, she finally caught sight of the tower.

And on the path that snaked up to it, a familiar figure stood and looked right back up at her.

*

Pearl would not call herself a coward. It wasn't a fair term to use after everything that had happened. She was not afraid but regretful; she was not fickle but fair.

When she had arrived at her destination, it had felt wrong. The tower was too tall in front of her, and the path too wide beside her. Despite her decision to go on alone, to light the fire herself and never even have to fight Gem for it, she wanted to back out now.

She breathed in the cold air and stared up at the tower.

It was made from black stone and cracked with silver lines, reaching up to the sky and twisting up into a spire at the top. A golden flame was visible even from here, dancing and dying. Behind it the sky was dark — though not a dark like Pearl had dreamed of, with stars and a great moon and a soft wistfulness to it. It was cold and empty, almost purple with how impossibly black it seemed.

This was not night, she knew. This was nothing.

Placing down her bag in front of her, she circled around so that she was facing back up the path towards the town again and sat in front of her bag, waiting.

Time ticked on meaninglessly.

A shape grazed the horizon, and Pearl stood to greet it.

Gem seemed to pause when she saw her. For a second, Pearl thought she might not even come down. But then the moment passed, and she continued down the path, through the haze of lavender and green that painted the hill, a bright torch in her grip. She approached with the same rigid stance that she’d held at the top of the hill, and walked right up to Pearl and past her.

She stopped a few paces later and sighed, looking back.

“Come on, Pearl,” she said quietly. “It’s over.”

Dread carried Pearl back to her side, and they entered the small arch that formed the door of the tower together.

It was a little strange that the inside of the tower was so bright despite the lack of any light source. Then again, Pearl supposed that she had seen her fair share of strange things during this quest already.

Her eyes traced the twisting golden and blue lines that went around the room, weaving beautiful patterns into the dark walls. It was a perfectly round tower and so the pattern never ceased, alternating from one colour to the other in constant flux.

At the centre of the foyer was a spiral staircase that Gem approached before Pearl had even taken it in. It looked to be crumbling but, at a closer glance, she realised that it was perfectly solid. The lines of blue and lines of gold traced up these stairs too, and Pearl found herself running her fingers over them as she ascended, feeling them hum beneath her hand.

The stairs seemed to go on forever. Pearl could see Gem moving in front of her like a shadow. The only sound in the stairwell was that of their footsteps, slow and heavy.

They emerged into a round room larger than the first, and this one open to the elements. Not that there were any such elements to be felt — the air felt eerily still, and Pearl was reminded of the quiet of the town they had just left. The floor was covered in inscriptions she couldn’t understand, glowing a soft gold from the light of the flame above them.

And there it was: the flame she thought she was here to put out, which she was now to light in the name of the moon. The innkeeper had alluded to the next steps being clear once it had been lit; still it dimly glowered from its pedestal directly above. On either side of the room, a short flight of stairs ran up to the pedestal.

Gem took a few steps to the side to look up and see it properly, and Pearl did the same at the other side of the room. The flame really was vanishing quickly now that they were both here, as if their arrival had heralded the approach of a new decision.

When Pearl looked back down, Gem had dropped her things behind her and left her torch laying on its side, still burning lowly. In her hand she held her wooden sword, shaped by slow patience and yet weak as any branch would be.

It was time, then, Pearl supposed. With a heavy heart, she drew one of her own swords and left the rest at her side of the room.

Here was the source of her dread. Here she would have to face it.

*

Gem had never been the kind of person one would imagine as a champion.

Most of her mornings awake had been spent in apiaries, among beehives and flowers and little wicker baskets. She would draw and paint and do whatever took her fancy, and sit by the docks to let the fresh sea air fill her lungs like breath.

She had always lived in a land of eternal sun, it would be thanks to her that the sun would remain in the sky. She had been selected by the sun’s rays, and she had reached the tower, and she would be the one to save them all.

It was the last part of her mission, and she moved around the room in a slow rotation, like the sun trailing about its axis. Opposite her, her opponent mirrored her, and they turned about each other like slow spinning dancers.

Above anything else, Gem had resolved to win.

She stepped forward first, swinging back with her sword, and then they were locked in combat, a back and forth that was more dodging than striking. Above them the flame began to sputter out, and Gem could feel the branch in her hand ready to snap at any moment.

Still she kept fighting, and Pearl fought her still, both their attacks turning sloppy as they got closer to striking more dangerous blows, reluctance weighing their arms back. If Gem said she could only think of the village she had left behind, and of the monsters she had fought through, and of the world she had been tasked to protect, then she would be lying.

Instead her mind tried to tackle both the opponent at hand and the innkeeper’s words. She ducked under Pearl’s sword as she thought of the moon sitting still in the starry sky above the clearing. As she struck forward and missed by a few inches, she thought of the yellowed grass where the sun had razed it. And through it all, she thought of the intertwined lines all along the tower, turning around and around each other like a cycle or a dance.

Suddenly all of her thoughts turned crystal clear before her. At that exact moment, the wooden sword snapped in her hands.

“We’re not meant to win,” she gasped out as the two twigs flew apart, and Pearl froze. Gem could feel her own breath heaving in her chest, realisation meeting exhaustion. “Neither of us are meant to defeat the other. We’re supposed to go up there together.”

She pointed up at the flame and Pearl’s eyes followed her gaze.

Two staircases went around the room to the pedestal, a pair of diverging paths. For two people, rather than for one.

“Oh,” Pearl said, almost a whisper. “Oh. It was never meant to be just one of us.”

“Both the day and the night are meant to exist together. In unison, or in flux, but never one or the other for this long.”

“We don’t need to hurt each other,” Pearl breathed. She turned to Gem with renewed brightness in her eyes, and the sudden joy there made Gem feel as though she was about to cry. “We can — we can both get what we want?”

Gem almost nodded. She almost agreed. But she remembered the innkeeper’s words. “Neither of us can have everything we wish for.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know,” Gem said, “but I don’t think lighting that flame is all there is to it.”

“Only one way to find out,” Pearl said, and to that Gem did nod.

In a split second decision, Gem leaned forward to kiss Pearl one more time, and felt Pearl reach up to hold her face as she kissed back.

And then the short time they had together slipped out from beneath them both, and the flame above them finally died out completely. The last embers spit out from the pedestal and landed at their feet.

“Good luck,” Gem murmured.

“We won’t need it,” Pearl replied. “We have each other.”

Gem gave Pearl a final, small smile, and then went to pick up the torch and climb up her side of the tower.

*

It was as though time had stopped.

Pearl hadn’t noticed it at first, but as she went up those last few stairs she could see the ash frozen in place as it drifted above the place where the fire used to sit. The air had already been still, but now even the fields visible outside seemed entirely stuck in time. The torch in Gem’s hand burned, but only in jerky movements, like the world had slowed itself down into multiple split seconds tearing themselves apart.

The closer they got, the more the world seemed to freeze, until Pearl couldn’t see her own legs moving up the stairs except in individual images that came seconds apart from each other.

At the pedestal, Gem offered out the hand with the torch, and two seconds later Pearl’s hand was above hers, also holding tight to it with the bottom of her fingers touching the top of Gem’s.

Together, they lowered it to the pedestal, and a spark skittered to the place where the old flame had just cooled.

All round them fire burst into life again, spreading instantly and surrounding them both. Distantly Pearl knew they should both have been burning or at least hot, yet she could only feel a light warmth and a humming at the points where her fingers touched Gem’s. The fire was loud, though, roaring in her ears and breaking the silence that had been embedded in the tower for so long.

“Do you feel that?” Gem shouted over to Pearl.

She was about to ask what she meant, but then she felt it too: a lightness in her entire body, and the press of something else into her soul. Something she had never even thought of, like a concept too ancient and huge for her to ever grasp.

The torch was gone from her hand, somehow, and she was holding Gem’s hand tightly instead. Around them the fire swirled like water, and above her— above her—

Both the sun and the moon seemed to exist at once in the sky, set in that same high point at the centre of the sky, which shone so bright and dark simultaneously that Pearl’s mind spilled over in comprehension and everything fuzzed into the small circle around her and the great circle in the sky.

She remembered her village, with its weavers and whispers and embroidered moons. She remembered rain and youth and laughter and puddles and a kiss in the rain, and then she remembered bees and flowers and paintings of the sky upon a canvas.

In her mind were things she’d never seen and people she’d never met but knew anyway: a man named Sausage, with a great smile on his face and his hand in hers; a village hall full of familiar faces and proud expectations; and the sun, pressing warmth into a line of laundry, drying them smoothly as they fluttered in a soft breeze.

Without moving, she could see Gem right in front of her, gripping her hands tight and tears in her eyes. The flames spun around them, or perhaps they spun within the flames, and Pearl could feel everything that made the both of them combine and re-separate a million times over in a single moment.

It made sense now that she was here, with thoughts larger than every life she could have ever lived engulfing her mind.

Neither of them were meant to win. Neither of them would get everything they wished for. They would get the sun, and they would get the moon, but they would get neither each other nor the lives they had left behind.

Something older than time tugged gently at her soul, beckoning her to the sky.

“I’ll find my way back to you,” Gem promised from right in front of her and a million miles away, more of a thought than a voice.

Pearl squeezed her hands one last time, and she knew that if she could she would be crying. “Me too. One day, we’ll find each other, towers and quests be damned.”

With a tearful laugh, Gem nodded desperately back at her, before the two of them finally let each other go.

The world faded into night, and Pearl could see the stars.

*

The sun and the moon circle each other, now, a dance around the sky until the end of time. One chases after the other, and the other after the first, each longing to be reunited and yet never close enough to join.

Two souls revolve in perfect unison. Each aches with the lack of the other and continues forward, journeying on and on with a love that does not falter and does not end.

Between them, the world stays in balance.