Chapter Text
Pearl didn’t have a goal in life, didn’t have some big dream she wanted to achieve. She just figured she’d marry, produce an heir, and live the rest of her days as a quiet, agreeable wife that she was raised to be. Whatever she needed to do to appease her parents.
But she hadn’t found any man that she’d liked, yet. While marriage for political reasons was preferred over love in her kingdom, Pearl was given until her 18th birthday to find someone (from a respectable family, of course) that she wanted to marry. After that, she’d be promised to the man of her parent’s choice and be sent away to be a housewife.
Pearl didn’t argue with it. She had no reason to. It was all life had to offer for princesses like her. That is, until she met someone.
Someone whose rusty ginger hair curled into fiery and hot waves, rivaling her personality. Someone whose deep, dusty green eyes gleamed like polished jade, round and full of dreams and hope.
Someone whose melodic voice carried through her dreams, day and night.
Someone who’s smile could light up the room, laugh infectious despite how common it may be.
Someone who noticed the little things or quirks about Pearl, reading her so easily from even the smallest body language hints, knowing what it meant in an instant.
Someone who was the greatest person Pearl had ever had the pleasure of knowing.
God, she was rambling, wasn’t she?
Anyways! Continuing with the introduction!
Gem was perfect, it didn’t matter that she wasn’t a royal. It didn’t matter that she was a woman. Well, maybe it did. Both of those.
You see, royals(In her kingdom, at least) don’t usually marry commoners. And people don’t usually take kindly to… “unnatural acts between two of the same sex”. Basically, Gem would be executed for “seducing the princess”. Pearl would probably have to be “converted”.
Pearl wasn’t fond of that plan, exactly. She was scowling just thinking about it. She would be more upset about the hypothetical of Gem getting executed, but she wasn’t. Because it was just that. A hypothetical scenario. Right?
—
The day she met Gem was a wonderful, extraordinary day. …Definitely not because of the weather. It was winter, and it was snowing, hard.
Pearl had known this. Highly confidential insider information though, she couldn’t tell you where she learned it. Okay, she could, it was from Cleo. Aka her best friend and also somewhat of a sorcerer but shhhh, you didn’t hear that from Pearl.
So, it was snowing. A blizzard, even. Snow flying all over the courtyard, settling in giant heaps of white. Pearl decided that she wanted to play in the snow!
That wasn’t an unreasonable request, Pearl thought, and yet it was still denied by her grumpy, fun hating parents.
Who cares! Pearl would just, y’know, defy orders and sneak out. Because she was a rebellious teenager now, aha… She did rebellious teenager things!
Obviously she snuck out of the castle without even telling her brother to go play in the snow in the woods. Who wouldn’t?
Pearl would just be in and out, got it? She just wanted a little bit of playtime, she wouldn’t be long! she had to be quick, as her parents would probablyyyyy scold her for defying orders if she got caught.
so here Pearl was, making a snowman that looked like it was on its last day and definitely about to topple over. She named him Gill. There were footsteps in the snow leading into the woods, but they were almost completely covered by the snow still falling. It was a mess of snow everywhere, catching in her hair and scarf, white speckling her hair.
Needless to say, Pearl was having a wonderful time. Speaking of time! She absolutely lost track of it.
—
The princess was missing? The princess was missing. By the time the king and queen had noticed, the tracks had probably already been covered up by the ongoing blizzard.
How lovely that Gem, one of the lowly squires, was now being sent out to search for her. Turns out that if you’re a woman serving the castle as a squire, you had to do all the dirty work. Joel didn’t have to do this and he was still a squire as well!!
This was bullshit. Who needed to respect women, she guessed, huh???
Whatever. She shook the snow off her face, some falling from her hair as well. Gem tried to squint through the blizzard, proving mostly unsuccessful. The cold bit at her face and numbed her ears in the frigid weather, Gem was ecstatic to be wasting her time looking for the princess who was probably in the castle, despite the maids insisting that they searched every inch. Ugh.
Gem trudged forward against the wind, covering her mouth with her cloak, destination was… over near the trees because in Gem’s logic the forest would be less windy and cold.
It was probably a stupid idea going out without her helmet in this weather, though. The padding under her armor showed just how useless it was to warm her head. Her lips were practically turning blue, nose red and sticking out like a sore thumb.
Gem was about to go on another rant about how cold her face was and how she much preferred the autumn, when she noticed a branch from a nearby tree sticking out of the snow weirdly, purposely, perhaps? There was no layer of snow on the top of it. Odd, Gem thought, and filed it away for later, despite it probably being completely unimportant.
She had momentarily forgot her mission to instead complain about the temperature. Gem was sharp when needed, she was sure that if the princess was out here, the loyal squire could find her. Maybe she’d even earn a little more respect… more determined with that thought, she continued her search.
Her search that didn’t last very long. despite the snow rushing past her in the loud breeze, Gem caught a faint sound to her left. She had been jumping at sounds the whole time, but this time she had actually been successful in her search.
A small figure kneeled over a pile of snow, molding it with her hands, then throwing it at a tree.
Gem studied, then quickly approached the figure, getting their attention with a “hey!”. She had a hand rested on her sword handle just in case.
Needless to say, the person wasn’t expecting that and jumped back with a yelp, tossing the snowball at Gem.
The squire flinched and wiped the snow off her face. “Thanks.” She said dryly with a sigh. She rested a knee on the ground now, kneeling in the snow.
“Sorry!!” The person cried, leaning closer to see if the Gem was okay. Then her face soured a bit.
“You’re a guard or something? Aren’t you?” They huffed, spotting Gem’s shiny metal armor under her cloak. Their breath shone in the air, and Gem judged based off of their attire that they must’ve been really cold.
“Yes. I am. And you’re supposed to be home.” Gem confirmed, looking down to her knee and leaning to brush the snow off her armor, then meeting the princesses’ eyes.
“Five more minutes? Please?” The princess pleaded, clasping her hands and looking at Gem.
“You really need to get home…” Gem protested, glancing around then back at the princess who was now doing puppy eyes. She sighed hard.
“Fine. 5 minutes. that’s it.” Gem grumbled, unable to disobey the princess. And also a victim to her immaculate charm. Gem crossed her arms and tilted her head up in some sort of sulk.
“but just… take this.” Gem disrobed from the cloak and stepped closer to throw it around Pearl, the silver fox fur on the shoulders soft between her gloved fingers. “Can’t have you freezing before we get you home.”
She shrugged like she didn’t care, but hid a smile when she saw how much Princess Pearl lit up, wrapping the cloak around her and jumping.
—
Gem momentarily forgot about Pearl’s status and her own duties as a squire. Instead, she was dragged begrudgingly into a snowball fight.
One that ended in Gem being pushed to the floor and many, many giggles. The squire usually wouldn’t have been bested so easily, despite still being young and inexperienced.
In being shoved into the heaps of snow, sinking down till she could be covered by it, more snow pilling on top in the blizzard, gem remembered that, yes, it was very cold. And yes, She needed to get home. Preferably with Pearl.
She sat up and spoke in a more serious tone like the fall knocked the giggles out of her. But no, Gem was only somehow suppressing them. “Alright, that’s enough goofing off, I need to take you home. It’s been more than 5 minutes and you know that.”
The young squire slowly stood, letting the snow melt and slide off her armor. she met pearls eyes and gestured back in the way of the castle.
“Ugh. Fine.” Pearl wrapped the cloak around herself tighter and muttered as though it was such an inconvenience to get her back to a warm home.
The redhead wrapped an arm around the princess and they walked off into the direction Gem was sure the castle was in. Thankfully, it was. Due to Gem’s impeccable navigational skills.
Pearl was returned home, one of the princes at the gate to hug her and welcome her home, practically clinging to her leg, and she was swiftly escorted to the king and queen by a guard.
Gem was just happy to have accomplished her mission! Surely she’d get some recognition for it. And also, maybe she was happy to have made an acquaintance, too.
She wouldn’t go as far as to say “friend”. She didn’t want to call herself a friend of the princess, she didn’t want to sound arrogant in case it wasn’t true. But maybe it was.