Chapter Text
Gem liked to consider herself socially aware. She could read different scenarios well, identify social cues and adjust herself. Perhaps she was almost too good at it.
It wasn't her fault, though. She had to be, to survive. To be able to travel through worlds in a blink of an eye, adjust to new social norms and blend in. To pretend she fit, when she didn't. She didn't really fit anywhere, but she got by just fine.
Gem didn't hide that part of herself as much anymore. She could pretend less. After the whole empires and hermitcraft fiasco, all of the hermits were now aware that she was a world hopper to some sort of extent. All the same, most didn't know quite what that entailed.
Grian knew more than most, she'd grant him that. He saw things others didn't, perhaps uncannily so. Gem never brought attention to it, called him out. They all had their secrets.
When she first approached him with her proposition, he looked at her in disbelief.
"You don't know what you're asking, Gem. For me to put you in the games as a full player, I... it's dangerous."
Gem scoffed at that. "You think I don't know that? I spent a week in the last game, and I did well. You know I did well."
Grian refused to look at her, rummaging through his chests. "You know you weren't suppose to be in there. And it-it's not going to be the same. Being immersed in the games completely...they change people. It messes with your head."
He was right. Gem had watched as her friends vanished for months, coming back...different. Pearl had barely spoken interacted with anyone besides Gem after the third game, even though no one else seemed to act like anything had gone wrong. Except for Grian. And Scott, when she thought about it.
It was strange. People would flinch at random sounds, like the sound of another taking damage, or lightning striking the sky. Or they would get a strange look of déjà vu on their faces at a certain incident, but then look confused, like they couldn't quite remember why it had bothered them.
Gem didn't relent. "It's different for me, Grian. You know it is."
"It's not, Gem. You wouldn't be able to just hop out of the world once you're in there. You would have to be eliminated. Can you deal with not seeing your friends, your family, for months? No way to reach out? Being made to kill?"
Gem watched carefully, the way his black eyes seemed to flicker slightly purple.
He straightened up, sighing heavily. "I'm not trying to be mean, Gem. You would be a good fit, I'll grant you that. A good player. But there are elements to that place that are far out of my control. It's all spiralled. I can decide the gimmick, but I can't reprogram things fully. The game will bring you in when it wants. Lizzie was set free for a while, I'll grant you that, but she'll have to return now. I can feel it. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"
"I do." Gem nudged him, trying to make him smile. "I'll be fine. God's favourite princess remember?"
Grian didn't smile. He looked haunted. "Do you believe in there being a god out there, Gem? Really?"
If only he knew.
Gem just shrugged. He sighed.
"Fine." He took her arm. "I'll have to leave a tiny mark that will bring you into the game when it's time. It'll be on the back of your forearm so you won't see it all the time. Last chance to back out."
Gem just rolled up her sleeve.
As she turned to leave, Grian called out to her.
"Gem? Try not to let Pearl see? Please."
"Sure, Grian."
Gem had been doing quite a good job at hiding it from Pearl. She was proud. Shame it didn't last.
She had been reaching up for bowls, preparing for soup, when a hand grabbed her wrist, holding it tightly in place.
"Pearl, what-" Gem turned to find her friend staring at her arm, a heartbreaking expression on her face.
"No - Gem, he couldn't have - we need to get this off. Quickly. You can't- Gem-I-" Pearl shook her head rapidly, her breathing quickening. Gem was immediately reminded of the aftermath of the third set of games. Just seeing a wolf had set Pearl into a panic attack.
"Pearl, I need you to breathe." Gem grabbed her shoulders, taking in deep breaths for Pearl to copy. Eventually, her breathing slowed. But she looked furious.
"I need to find Grian. I can't believe he did this to you." She was already preparing to fly off, right through Gem's window.
"No, Pearlie, it's okay. I asked to join." Pearl's head snapped to her, blue eyes blown wide.
"What do you mean you asked for to join? Are you insane?! Why would you choose this?"
Gem felt terrible about the whole thing. Pearl was her best friend, someone who Gem had lost over and over again, across servers and dimensions, but who kept coming back to her, for her. Pearl didn't remember as much as her, but she knew enough to be as protective of her as Gem was to Pearl. They looked out for each other, and Gem loved her so much.
Pearl looked worried after Gem explained herself, shaking her head in pity. There was that haunted look in her eyes, the same as Grian.
"Does that mean there'll be a new game soon?" Pearl whispered. When Gem nodded, she let out a deep sigh, her brown bangs blowing out with her exhale. Gem caught sight of the scar, the one ran faintly over her eye. Pearl never told her how she got it. "Fine. I warned you."
She understood why Pearl and Grian reacted that way, to some extent. Scott had spoken with her once, about the red haze. His cyan eyes had flickered with something Gem didn't see very often in her friend. Fury.
Whether it was at the game, the other players, or himself, she didn't know.
Scott was different in the games to the other players, Gem gathered. He was sociable, able to manipulate to survive. It made her respect him more, actually.
When Gem told him about her joining, he smiled.
"That's wonderful Gem! You'll be a good fit for the games, you have that driving spirit. I'll see you there."
Gem didn't know if it was genuine. He was always an unbreakable wall, guarding all his emotions behind it. The only real time Gem had seen it broken was during that terrible stay in the dungeon, back when they were wizard and elf.
The both of them crying out that the other was innocent, Scott brokenly begging Sausage to stop as Gem was killed over and over again, her screams never ending, the dark magic weakening her each time-
Scott remembered all of that incident, Gem knew that much, but they didn't talk about it. Their captors were still their friends, underneath, and they hadn't remembered what happened while being corrupted by Xornoth at all. So why remind them?
They were both pretenders, deep down. Scott kept her secrets, and she kept his. They didn't really need to talk about it.
At the root of it, it was just how things went. How they had to stay.
It was hard to explain why she really wanted to join. Maybe it was because deep down, deeper than a being a pretender, Gem was a roleplayer. She loved her characters, the way she could become someone new entirely and drive a story of intertwining morals.
She could take a new form, a character, be a wizard with her long ginger braid and endless wisdom, hatching a dragon egg. Or she could be a princess who worshipped the sun, who followed the wisps and rode a mighty bear. An elf, who lived in a palace of her own making and killed her friends for fun, know they would always wake up in their bed the next moment with a laugh at her antics.
But Gem wasn't a god. Not quite. She couldn't decide how the story would end, couldn't dictate what number the dice of chance and luck would land on when she rolled. She only had the awareness that she could control her narrative, to an extent.
So why not see how it went in a death game?
That was just what made it exciting.
Secret life was unlike anything she had experienced. Gem went into the game with the knowledge that others feared her, saw her as some kind of threat to their chances of winning.
It hurt, sure, seeing people that were her friends flinch away when she made throwaway threats, just joking around. She understood that it wasn't her fault, wasn't theirs either. The games were hard on them, the limited amount of lives, the constant reminder that when you were on red, you would be consumed by an unmistakable drive to harm, to kill.
Gem couldn't help but wonder why the others acted strange about it, like the notion of everything was completely new to them. They had all been in at least one game by that point, she was meant to be the newbie here. Yet, most of them were still confused by the idea of the red hostilities, as if was the first they would be experiencing it.
Eventually she asked Scott, sitting around the campfire after Impulse went to sleep. Gem watched him hesitant, reaching for a blue braid of hair to tug on only to come up empty. He clearly still missed playing with his braid of hair during his traditional eleven days.
"What I'm about to tell you, you can't discuss later with the others. Promise?"
"I promise." Gem was confused about the his serious expression, but was willing to follow along. Scott hesitated again, but knew she wouldn't let it go. She was stubborn like that.
"When you win and become a victor, you get a... reward. You remember every single painful detail of the games, previous ones and future ones. All of the grief, betrayal and bloodshed."
Gem blinked. "So you're saying the others won't remember?"
Scott's brows furrowed. "No, it's...tricky. They remember the good bits. The laughter, and the thrill of battle, and the exciting gimmicks. The alliances and enemies. But they don't remember the pain. The red haze, the final deaths. It's like a pair of rose tinted glasses, and winning pulls them off."
The breeze blew gently, pink cherry blossom petals drifting through the air. Straight into the hungry flames.
Gem swallowed. "So I won't remember everything unless I win?"
"You'll remember."
"We don't know how it's going to go. I don't know if I'll win, it's still early days-"
"That's not what I mean, Gem." He looked right her, his green tinted eyes gleaming. "Grian doesn't know, does he? Your secret."
"He knows I'm a world hopper." Gem stared right back at him. She wondered if her own emerald eyes would be fully overtaken by red soon enough.
"That's not what I'm referring too and you know it." Gem flinched slightly.
"You think that... it's... going have an impact? That I'll remember everything?"
"You remember all of empires, don't you? The rapture. You were going back forth in secret for months, and kept all of your memories intact. Why do you think this will be different?"
Gem was tired of pretending. But she was willing to do it to keep her secrets close. She stood up, legs cramping from sitting down for so long.
"We don't speak of this again." It was only half a threat, and they both knew it. Scott gave her a lazy smile.
"Sure, Gem. I'm not going to tell on you. Night."
She didn't sleep at all that night.
The game had gone downhill for her, fast. The portal had taken her eye, covered half her body in slow, cold corruption. Her arm throbbed with a dull ache constantly. It was difficult, only seeing out of one eye, but no one seemed to act like it was different. Pearl had looked at her with widened eyes, but didn't say anything.
And then she was infected with a curse, tasked with creating an apocalypse. The red haze took over while she was still only a yellow name, her eyes only amber, a voice in her head screaming at her to kill, over and over.
So she did. Gem played her part, and raised a beautiful army. So much violence and deaths, starting the bloodbath early. It took a life from her, but the haze didn't grow stronger. It just became more natural, more effortless.
When it came down to the final battle, it hurt. Gem took Scott's life, accepting his sacrifice. He loved to do that, and she would let him continue his own narrative. But then Pearl appeared. Not the Pearl she knew, who made silly soup and flew through Gem's window, glass or not, but Scarlet Pearl. The one that wore a red cloak, that scar over her crimson eye throbbing and angry. She attacked Gem with Scar, killing her with a fervent aggression, a rage that stunned Gem.
Gem looked up at her blearily out of her working eye as she bled out in the ground, and noticed distantly that Pearl had a look of clarity amongst the red. A look of regret, of remorse, before darkness overtook what was left of Gem's vision.
And then she died.
Gem respawned in her bed with a gasp. She was back on Hermitcraft, back in her elven palace. And she remembered everything.
Scott was often right about things, she supposed.
Gem forgave Pearl immediately. The 2v1 hadn't been fair, but Pearl and Scar had been more official allies than Gem's murder camel spree with her could ever be. The brutality of it made sense, the red haze had been all consuming. It made betrayal instinctual, violence natural.
Of course, Gem couldn't tell Pearl she forgave her. Pearl clearly thought Gem didn't remember it. So did Grian, if his carefully worded questions about the game were anything to go off. She played dumb, talking about her band with her Scott's, her diving board task. Nice, fun moments. The rose coloured glasses
The nightmares were bad, though. The feeling of her body growing cold with corruption, skin growing cold and dark blue, like solidified skulk.
Her eye being taken by the End and becoming dark, so so dark.
The growing list of tasks, each one urging her to be more violent, make people more vulnerable, take their hearts, take their lives, take everything.
The whispers growing louder and louder in her head, furious with her as she failed another task and the health and hearts were ripped out of her body.
But Gem was good at pretending.
Wild life started differently. She had Joel, who had so much ability but was too easily provoked. That was what had kept him from winning, Gem thought. So she stood up for him, kept him from being antagonised or aggravated by the others. It reminded her of being a wizard on empires, when she played a social game and made her allies seem less evil.
It helped that Joel wasn't actually evil. Made her job easier.
She tied a green headband around her ginger hair, put a target on her dungarees to show others that they should want to target her, that her team was strong, even when none hostile.
Gem made Joel seem good, her family. Just framed by Impulse and Pearl. They were good antagonists the narrative she was building, she just needed a backstory for it.
That was when Gem messed up.
The G's were on her territory again, bothering Joel and going through all of their chests, looking for wacky items to satisfy their ever growing hunger. Gem was arguing with Pearl, showing obvious distrust to anyone watching.
"Why don't you trust me Gem? What do you think I'm capable of doing?" Pearl was just teasing, fluttering her eyes to look innocent. She seemed to enjoy the banter, the idea of them fighting. Gem crossed her arms.
"Uh huh. I don't know, Pearl. Just seems a bit rich coming from someone who isn't afraid of an unfair fight. You seem to love outnumbering me, don't you?"
Pearl reeled back in shock, her black hood slipping off her head. Scott immediately looked over, shaking his head slightly. Gem hid her rising panic as her mistake sunk in. She hurried on.
"Although, you're being a bit wet cat like this time around, aren't you? It's a bit pathetic, honestly."
"Hey!" Impulse started approaching, ready to argue, but that was the point that Scott and Cleo stepped in, ready for damage control. That was how the narrative was supposed to continue. But Pearl seemed to be done playing along, still looking at Gem in disbelief.
Impulse pulled Pearl away before she could get Gem alone, angry from the families hostility and insults. Cleo left after them, and Scott waited for Joel to head off again to cool off.
"Gem, what were you thinking? You don't bring up grudges from other seasons. Ever. Now they know."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Pearl knows. Not all the winners. She knows I remember, big deal. I shouldn't have mentioned it, I know, but I can just gaslight her, can't I? I didn't directly say I remember."
Scott looked disappointed in her. "She's going to tell Grian. You know she will. And Martyn will find out. He's always listening." He turned to leave. "I'll keep your secret for you, don't worry. But you've messed up. Deal with the consequences of this, fix it, before it blows up on you."
Gem was left on her island, Joel in the distance, her hunger growing by the second. But she didn't want to eat more grass, or copper. She just wanted to cry.
Gem was good at pretending. But she wasn't good enough, anymore. And something told her it was all going to come back to bite her soon enough.