A Path to a Different Happy Ending (Flower Husbands Empires Fic)

Chapter Eight: Reminiscing

Shubble was scared. She wasn't scared of Joey, or of the dark, but something about sneaking scared her. The need to sneak, possibly. In the darkness, slipping between buildings, constantly glancing over her shoulder... Her actions made it feel like she should be afraid, and so she was. It wasn't very strong, but it was there.

She scoffed, and ignored the fear, continuing forward. Lord Pluto, the smallest of her dogs, followed behind her. She darted through the trees, eyes on the faint silhouette of Joey's Earth Temple. She could barely see it through the trees and the dark. But she could, and that was enough.

She slid into the temple, searching for a painting of a man on a bicycle, which is a bit of a weird thing to have in a temple, but okay! She found two, so she pulled one off the wall. There was nothing, so she checked the second one. Sure enough, there were stairs behind it, just as Gem had said. Shubble told Lord Pluto to keep an eye out and began her descent.

She entered a room draped in red and black cloth. Joey had an... interesting idea of how to decorate this room. There was a summoning circle made of redstone on the floor. There was also a table with black candles on it, and an empty armour stand inserted into the middle of it. It was obvious that this was where the crown was supposed to be, and that it wasn't there.

Shubble pulled out a piece of paper and quickly scrawled a note onto it, then she darted up the stairs and gave it to Lord Pluto.

"Go. Get this to Gem, or Scott, or Pearl, or Rarran. Any of them will work. Make haste. I'll follow."

Lord Pluto darted off into the woods, and Shubble turned to close the painting.

Shubble? What are you doing? Why were you down there?"

Shubble turned to see Joey standing in the entrance to his temple.

"I was - uh - coming to see you! I wanted to make a deal for totems! I - I just found the painting open! What's down there anyway?" Shubble was terrified. She'd found the crown, for sure, and Joey was wearing it, his eyes as red as the first time.

"Nothing. But you already know that, don't you? You were down there. You shouldn't have been." And he lunged at her.

~*~

Shubble woke up in an obsidian box, with mining fatigue. There was an iron trap door above her, but it was four blocks up, and she had no gear, no way to get up there.

She was trapped.

At least Lord Pluto had her message.

~*~

Since Pearl was staying around the others for the duration of this Xornoth crystal debacle, Jimmy decided to pay a visit to the 'gilded queen'.

"Hello? Pearl?" He called out, wondering how he hadn't found her yet, what with the size of her empire.

"What's this? Jimmy? In my empire?"

He turned around. "Hi, Pearl."

"What's up?" She smiled.

Jimmy laughed. "It's kinda hard to explain, but I have a problem. I already went to Katherine about it, and apparently her Spring wanted me to go to you, so I have."

"And what is this problem?"

"Well, I've been having these weird recurring dreams."

"Okay... So what do you remember about them?"

"Well, the least clear one is a broken rectangle. The most clear is something called Third Life-"

"Wait, wait. Broken rectangle? Like, the corners have been pulled out?"

Jimmy hadn't described it that well, but that was it. He nodded.

"That's another dimension. It was called Evo. I was there."

Jimmy sucked in a sharp breath, remembering.

A cobblestone rectangle set in sandstone.

His friend, Martyn, and him running the Property Police.

The world slowly disintegrating.

The Watchers coming to their rescue at the last moment.

And a promise of not having to deal with remembering the horrors of Evo's fall.

Jimmy was lying on the ground, Pearl kneeling next to him.

"Are you okay? You kinda just fell over." Pearl's brow furrowed in concern.

Jimmy sat up. "Evo! It - it - The Watchers! An- and the Property Police! And all our friends!" Jimmy couldn't articulate a proper sentence.

"You remember?"

"Yeah... But the Watchers said they would take away our memories..." Now Jimmy was confused. No, actually, he was just still confused. This wasn't new.

"I'm remembering, too. They must be returning our memories, for some reason. Actually, I'm not just remembering. I completely remember Evo. And... There's something else. A world... Anyways, the other thing you mentioned. Third LIfe. That was real, in another dimension. It's kinda complicated to explain." Pearl said.

"Well, I don't have anything else to do today, do you?" Jimmy responded.

Pearl smiled. "No, I don't.

"So. Jimmy, you remember the Watchers, right?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Yes, well, they've been forced, in some way, to run these games, called Death Games. The first was Third Life. You and twelve others were in it, including Joel, Grian, and BigB. You remember them?"

"I remember almost everything in Third Life, except what happened in the Battle of the Red Desert, and everything in Evo."

"Okay. Limited lives, yada yada, Grian wins, you know this. Grian was given some sort of undisclosed reward for winning. I was forced to watch bits of it, since I would be joining the second game, called Last Life. They tried to convince me that it wasn't all bad, with images of you and 󠀨󠁜󠁙ᓭᓵ𝙹ℸ ̣ ℸ ̣." Pearl's voice twisted to an odd harsh but musical language that Jimmy most definitely did not know.

"What?" He asked.

"You and ᓭᓵ𝙹ℸ ̣ ℸ ̣. You were married, don't you remember?" Pearl tilted her head slightly.

"I remember being married, but not who I was married to, and I don't know what you're saying, but it sounds like a name in a different language."

"Different- Oh. You can't hear me say his name. Let me try telling you who it is in a different way. He's ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ꖌ╎リ⊣ 𝙹⎓ ∷╎⍊ᒷリ↸ᒷꖎꖎ."

"He's what? It sounded like the same language as I heard his name in."

"I can't tell you anything about him, can I? Well, he's with us in this world."

"He's in this world?!?" Jimmy exclaimed. "Who? Wait, you can't answer that."

"You could actually hear what I said? That's surprising."

"Oh, I wanna know so bad now..." Jimmy put his head in his hands.

"I'm certain you'll remember with time. That's how I ended up remembering Last Life as well as Evo." Pearl said.

"Last Life? I faintly remember that... I died permanently first again. And... Ah-ha. That was a thing, and spy glasses."

"Only if you lived in the Southlands, which you did."

"What else happened there? I might remember more..."

"I don't know as much about what you did there as I do about Evo and Third Life, and my memory is still full of holes, but maybe something will trigger a memory..." Pearl sounded doubtful, but they were gonna try anyway.