#apparently art

Bonus Panel

The AO3 chapter has code that lets you hover/tap the Galactic text to auto-translate.

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Smajor1995

Location: Pearl's unit, Simmers' Quarter, 4th Floor, 552

🖤  🖤  💚

Scott Smajor is a dragon, an allay, and a vex, and his soul is boiling him alive. Pearl can feel every pulse through the hand resting on his chest. She tries to warn him. Some itchy thing in the back of his mind knows that. His system’s overheating, so he doesn’t stop her as she separates his skin from soul. She goes right down the front. Snap. Snap. Snap. It’d be terrifying, belly-up like prey, thoroughly exposed, if it were any other anivore. But he is always safe with Pearl.

“ᔑ∴ᔑꖌᒷ?” she asks, tucking hair behind her ear. Scott squints back through bleary eyes. Even when every twitching letter and decimal in his system burns, Pearl still sees the best in him. Thinks he’s capable of answering.

The only reply he gives is breath, his chest shaking every time it puffs. Scott lifts one hand, groping for Pearl’s shoulder, to find it as electric blue as the day he spawned. The glitch eating him alive no longer feigns at subtlety. He’s never glowed so cyan. He’s never flashed so white.

“ᔑリᓭ∴ᒷ∷ ᒲᒷ,” Pearl repeats, as if she’s not also riding the line between the sober and the scorned. Sparks zigzag in lightning bolts up his arm, his fingers dripping energy. It’s openly making Pearl’s mouth water as she drinks him in. Danger, the part of him that’s still prey whispers in his head. There’s a vampire bat crouching over him, blocking the lanternlight with her hunched-up wings. Freckles spatter her pale shoulder. Her hair’s a mess, tangled and frizzy in her face. She needs to go offline, or find a phantom to straighten out her code again. She looks like a drooping jacaranda tree… The kind he’s not supposed to keep blocks of in his office, even though he can’t be stopped.

I can fix you. He snags her hair between his fingers, pulling it down into his mouth. Pearl huffs, probably in laughter, and doesn’t stop him. “ℸ ̣ 𝙹⊣ᒷℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ∷.”

She feels like snow packed against him… There’s a reason dragons tell their spawnlings to build Nether portals in the tundra. Scott sinks into her, or she sinks into him, as pixels crackle and data blurs. His system whirrs a little louder, scrounging for something that could pass as solid form.

Scott Smajor is twisting from an allay into a vex. Glitched, corrupted, and flaring up, he’s the breath between a predator and prey. When he sinks his teeth in Pearl’s arm, she bites his neck just as hard. It feels like ointment - feels like bandages - and the next time he bites, he doesn’t let go.

“ᓵᔑꖎᒲ, ᓭᓵ𝙹ℸ ̣ ℸ ̣.”

Scott twitches when he hears his name. It doesn’t stop him. He clings on until Pearl’s pixels escape between his teeth, like he’s an alligator leaping at a monkey hiding in the tree leaves. Only then does he loosen up. He opens and shuts his mouth at her. Pearl chitters some squeaky, chirpy thing, her fingers tangled in the back of his hair. Scott surges up, snapping fangs. He misses her throat on purpose, but catches hair on accident. They fumble. Pearl’s teeth hit his face as he tries to shove her back.

Pause. Panting, licking saliva from shining lips. Pearl’s hand finds his scalp and pushes hair down into his eyes, narrowly missing the sensitive center of his forehead. Scott licks his lips a second time, turning his face aside. Her hand drags across his nose before dropping to his chest, like before.

Pixels prickle. They breathe together, spit dripping from their teeth, as Scott’s system starts to settle down. That whirring noise gets a little quieter. Pearl leans in, twisting her head to fit beneath his chin. She nips his throat. Scott catches the edge of his mouth in hers, just enough to push her back, and scrapes a hand across her chest. Both adjust. Quick bites, teeth flashing- They banter until Pearl snaps her wings. She jumps back, further down the bed. Scott’s played this game a thousand times before, in ten thousand stolen memories. Not with Pearl, though.

Never with Pearl.

Pearl springs forward, scuffing with soft hand. Scott blocks it with an arm, snapping his fangs just as she snaps hers. They slap each other with their hands - never enough to cause a damage tick - while growls and teeth clacks fill the air. Pearl wiggles to her belly at some point, coming in with less force, but just as much speed. Scott shows teeth, eyes locked on her nearest arm. But when she swats him hard, he jerks up with a hiss.

Pearl tilts sideways. Doesn’t matter. He nails her throat right in the pouch, sinking in his teeth. Soul energy crackles like redstone wire. He clamps her in place… and there they sit: awkwardly bent, breathing in the dark. Loose pixels roll down her twitching skin.

Her throat feels softer than he thought it would. His tongue laps up her dry moss taste, but she lacks scratchy edges and itchy leaves. He nicks deeper, but this time, Pearl pulls back hard. He lets her twist away.

I want a turn on top. Pearl’s been greedy. Scott can’t put weight on his glitched-out hand. His skin’s sliding off where she loosened the front, exposing raw energy beneath. He butts his head to Pearl’s shoulder. This playful nipping isn’t a very ‘allay’ game. He can’t bend his injured fingers, but he crashes both arms on top of her, shoving her. Pearl flops sideways on the bed. He finds her throat easily enough and claims it in his teeth again. It’s more fun now that he can bear his weight down. Pixels smart like lightning when they mix. As he pulls his teeth off her neck, Pearl blinks up at him through wary eyes.

Scott Smajor is an allay. His wings flex without his mental input; they’ve got instincts of their own.

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PearlescentMoon

Location: Pearl's unit, Simmers' Quarter, 4th Floor, 552

🖤  🧡  💚

Scott’s exhausted, riled up on moonfluence, and worst of all… embarrassed. He doesn’t clarify all that, but Pearl would be the same. They untangle from the bed and spend a few minutes walking around. Scott’s got moonlight to shake like water off his wings. Break time offers Pearl the chance to follow up with Bdubs, because if she doesn’t, he’ll probably lose his mind. She checks her comm, but he hasn’t sent another ‘Still good?’ since she asked he keep his distance. Hm. Maybe he’s treating her like an adult who can make her own choices after all.

She sends another whisper anyway. Adulting’s a two-way street and she’s not gonna drop the ball on keeping Bdubs in the loop. She sits at the bar counter while Scott’s on the other side, eating another brownie. He sees her typing. He’s not near enough to read the screen and he doesn’t ask who, but Pearl glances up and their eyes meet anyway. He doesn’t look thrilled she’s talking to someone on the side.

“I’ll put it away,” she tells him. “Just writing someone back while we chill.”

“About the cat?”

“What?”

“You said you might adopt a second cat. You, uh… don’t date, so you-” And he laughs, tossing back his head. “You sort of glitched out my go-to options there! I was like, ‘No, Pearl doesn’t  like women; can’t gush and ask her who,’ and ‘Oh no, she doesn’t like men either.’ Pearl, that’s all I have.”

She laughs along with him, and exchanges a glance with herself inside her head. You can’t think of anyone else I’d talk to if I’m not trying to pick them up?

Sigh. She’s pouring words down his throat with a ladle. Deep breath. Remember… If Cleo and Martyn made it work, she and Scott can too. Open communication. Honest expectations. No judgment. Apologies. That’s how it all goes down.

He pauses for a moment, then says, “I’m sorry you got pulled away from Gem and Impulse. Bdubs… Bdubs mentioned that. I was dragon brain when I had him invite you to tea party. I didn’t know.”

“No worries. You needed me.”

That comment leaves him visibly uncomfortable. He stands there, half a brownie in his hand. Pearl doesn’t pay him much attention, swiftly messaging a couple other people who’d sent her whispers. Look, she might as well. Scott walks away at some point. Pearl hears the balcony door squeak open. He’s probably checking the lock.

… He’s not, when she looks up again. The door is shut. Huh? Pearl crosses the living room, a spatter of nerves curving up her spine as she can’t see Nugget, until she hears a mew from up the hallway. Pearl squints through the window to confirm Scott’s not talking to someone on his comm. He’s definitely there, though… slumped against the rail, fingers tangled at the front of his hair. His bun’s pulling loose. Pearl opens the door as noisily as she can.

“Hey. You all right, mate? We can meet tomorrow if you need a longer break.”

Scott says… nothing at all. He stares down over the small section of New Star that her balcony overlooks. There’s not much to see out here in the southeast corner - Pretty much everything’s on the building’s other side - but the lanterns are nice, all glowing blue and white. Pearl leans against the balcony’s edge, trying to give Scott plenty of space without, y’know… letting the guy who is a dragon and clearly fighting with some strong emotions right now out of her sight.

“I,” he finally says, “feel like I’ve gaslit, gatekept, girlboss’d too close to the sun. I’ve gaslit myself, I think.”

Yeah, and he looks it, too. “You wanna talk longer?” Pearl jabs a thumb somewhere in the west. “My boss needs Moo today, not me. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

“This isn’t something I can talk about. Thank you, though.”

… Not sure what that’s about. “Mind if I hang out anyway?” See also, do not let the dragon stay unsupervised on the balcony. That’s not just a precaution for destructive powers, but if Alice seizes control of his body while his attention’s not all there and gets into trouble, well… Imagine if he careened into a wall and died from kinetic energy. Not good.

Scott shrugs. So together, spaced apart, they wait the minutes out on a little balcony in a little corner of a little city underground, way out here at the edge of the world. Or what may as well be, anyway. Pearl, knowing how much he loves to talk, expects that Scott will spill his thoughts eventually. He mostly doesn’t. After a while, he just asks if he can hug her again. She allows it. He squeezes her tight. They’ve got their collision back enough to feel it. Then he wipes his face and says if she gives him a couple more minutes, he’ll fix the door.

Pearl, maybe against her better judgment, carefully gives him alone time after that. She stays in the living room, though, until Scott’s ready to come back in. He waves his hand, rainbow sparkles glittering, and hands her a brand new key. Locks are changed. She thanks him and says she plans to tell Martyn off. Scott grumbles that she can absolutely report him for this because he had no business barging in if he wasn’t hunting and Pearl assures him that she’ll catch him sometime and talk about it privately. She likes to think he had good reason. He probably didn’t. Martyn doesn’t always think before he goes out wandering.

“Whyyyyy did he have a key?” Scott asks, trying a little too hard to sound casual about it. Pearl shrugs. She could lie to him, or she could be honest and it might be exactly what he needs to snap him out of allay brain (It’s impossible not to notice how he follows her, always staying a little behind and to one side).

“Gave it to him mid-Double Life for co-spawn roleplay.”

Scott freezes. Oh, yeah? Pearl turns on her heels, hands to hips. Her wings flap out to either side. “Don’t ask if you don’t want the answer, silly!”

He looks at her. He just… And she can see him rewiring his brain. The version of her his allay mind painted on a pedestal. The who she is doesn’t fit with who he thought he was doing favors for. He should drop it (Why’s he think he can ask?) but he says, “What?”

“Co-spawn roleplay. Came over and palled around; we pretended he sired my spark. What’s not to get? You and Cleo left us out in the cold, dude; we were lonely between sessions. It’s a long time to wallow.”

He looks very fidgety now, so Pearl changes the subject. “Wanna see my cobble baby?” You can paint them any way you like, but Pearl took her time and gave hers a proper face. Scrunched up nose and little bat ears, swaddled in its wings. She keeps it in a chest for when the nurse urges hit hardest beneath the waning moon.

“Not… really?” He rubs behind his neck. “You’ve made your point; that wasn’t my business.”

“Nope,” she says, grinning back at him. He makes a face. Scott tolerates the late-night bar conversations about what it might be like to have little sparks running around, but nursehood’s not for him. He’s a sire if he’s either one at all. Mob allays duplicate themselves without a partner, so maybe there’s something in his instincts that feels like it’s kind of gross. Or it’s some suppressed dragon thing. Rebellion. Who knows.