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Pearl stepped inside her house for some cool air and to refill her water. She made her way into the kitchen, easily ignoring the lingering roar of her warden doorbell. Cheerfully humming, she filled her water and set it on the counter before grabbing a glass and filling it up too.
“You should get some juices.”
Pearl nearly choked on her water at the surprise comment. Still spluttering, she turned to see Gem lounging on her couch.
“I–what?”
Gem raised her own cup. It was filled with ice cubes and water.
“You’ve got a glass of water.”
She stared at Pearl. “Yeah. But I would prefer some juice.”
Pearl set her now empty glass in the sink. “Hungry Hermits probably has juice. Tango wouldn’t care if you took some.”
“But Pearl,” Gem whined. “It’s so hot and so far away.”
And now Pearl knew what was going on. This was Gem wanting to hang out but deciding not to ask like a normal person. The juice was just her excuse to lounge on her couch and chatter to Pearl.
She leaned on the countertop and folded her arms. “Is the heat the only thing stopping you?” It had been quite warm, even for Hermitcraft’s careful temperature regulation, and it was approaching the hottest time of the day.
Gem sighed and took a sip of her water. “It’s just really hot outside. And your base has nice air conditioning. Plus you don’t care if I hang out. It all works out, really.”
The two sat in silence for a minute. Gem was drinking her water and Pearl was looking out of the window. No wind blew through the branches of her apple trees, and she saw a windsock that hung limply. It really was hot outside.
“What if I told you that there was a super cool snow biome that hasn’t been explored and isn’t that far away?” Pearl suddenly asked, breaking the calm silence. “How would you feel about that?”
“Pearl,” Gem said, “I would love to hear nothing more.”
Pearl grinned. “Well, it’s got snow and hills and a big frozen lake and probably lots of little critters running around.”
“Are you asking if I want to take a little vacation to a winter wonderland? Because the answer is yes. I absolutely want to go. Let’s go, come on!” Gem bounced to her feet and grabbed Pearl’s arm, shaking it. “Get your winter stuff, I wanna go!”
Pearl laughed at the enthusiasm. “Woah woah woah! I’ve got to wrap up some things before I can go. Tomorrow morning?”
“Tomorrow morning! I will be ringing your doorbell at the crack of dawn.”
As Gem dashed out of Pearl’s base, triggering the warden doorbell, Pearl yelled after her, “Not that early! It’s not that far away!”
— — — — —
Rockets blasted through the air, breaking the morning stillness. Two figures swiftly flew across the ground, slowing down before setting off another rocket and speeding back up. The cows in the meadows barely flinched, used to the sound this late in the season.
“I see it!” Gem called. “A little bit to your left!”
“Thanks!”
They adjusted and quickly came upon the snow biome. Pearl had been right; there weren’t any signs of players in the ground or trees. It was untouched and perfect to spend time away from the hot summer weather.
Pearl pulled out her enderchest as soon as they landed, pulling out her coat and scarf and bundling herself up. Gem, on the other hand, immediately turned in a slow circle to look at everything around.
“Come on, put your coat on. Don’t want to catch a summer cold, do you?”
Gem didn’t acknowledge Pearl for a moment. “It’s just so beautiful. Gosh, I love winter.”
Pearl smiled, watching as Gem finally retrieved her own coat and gloves. “It really is pretty.”
Properly bundled up, Pearl picked up the enderchest and they began walking through the forest. Icicles hung from trees and glittered in the sun, sending tiny rainbows across everything. The untouched snow crunched below their boots as they wandered past tall spruce trees.
“Hey, Pearl?” Gem asked. “You said there was a lake, right?”
“Sure did. Do you wanna go find it?”
Gem scoffed like it was even a question. “Yeah I do. What way is it?”
Pearl answered with silence instead of words.
Gem gave a long suffering sigh. “Good thing I enjoy hiking.”
They continued chatting as they picked a direction to walk in. Pearl complained about some redstone she was having issues with, and Gem gave an absolutely ridiculous solution that would be more likely to explode her project. Gem got onto the topic of fruit gardens and spent so long debating the ethics of a Tango pineapple garden that she didn’t even notice that the trees were starting to thin out.
“And I think it’s funny and creative so I don’t really see the problem! If you can have an apple orchard, why can’t I have a pineapple garden?” Gem threw her hands in the air, visually conveying her point.
“My apples don’t have a striking resemblance to my neighbor,” Pearl reminded her. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation.
“That’s Tango’s problem if he sees his own face in some fruits,” Gem replied, full of snark but a smile on her face. “Maybe more hermits see themselves in fruit. That would be an interesting experiment to run.”
Pearl shoved her arm. “Scheme about your questionably ethical experiments later. I think I see the lake ahead.”
Gem cheered and charged forwards, leaving her musings for later. Pearl scrambled to catch up to Gem’s sudden start but ended up matching her pace.
The lake was entirely frozen over. There was a little woolly pig slipping on the ice right off of the bank, where a few adult woolly pigs were waiting for it. A giant fallen tree was half submerged in the water, the roots reaching for the sky instead of being firmly planted in the ground.
“Wow.”
Pearl wasn’t sure if that was her or Gem, but it seemed they had the same sentiments.
“I wonder how thick the ice is.” Gem crouched in the snow and peered at the ice. “Oh! Pearl, come look!”
Pearl was right behind her staring into the water. Little fish swam in and around the swaying plants. They sat there for a while, watching the fish like it was an intense match of TCG. She noticed Gem slowly shifting towards her side, away from Pearl, but excused it as her readjusting. She shouldn’t have been so silly to think that.
She spluttered and shook the snow off of the side of her face. “Gem!”
After squishing a snowball into Pearl’s face, Gem had moved a few steps away. At Pearl’s indignation, she scooped up more snow for a snowball.
“No you don’t!” Pearl shouted, lunging to the side and making her own snowball. She chucked it at Gem and didn’t even check if it hit her before making another one.
A snowball hit her leg and she was quick to retaliate. They threw snowballs at each other, running around like headless chickens. While they had participated in a server wide snowball fight in the winter, it was different since it was just the two of them. Pearl had also been engrossed with the redstone dudes as they messed around with the physics of snow and how it could be moved around or used. Gem had opted to build snow creations and prank other Hermits for her strange experiments.
So a good, full-out snowball fight between them was long overdue. The fallen tree became Gem’s hideout that she climbed over and around like a deranged squirrel to avoid Pearl’s snowballs. Pearl wasn’t so fortunate and resorted to a loose snow wall and a decently large rock.
Any little fish in the water had swum away from the shore and the loud noises coming from it. The fresh snow on the ground was trampled and dug around in. It was clear that Hermits had definitely been there now.
Gem popped up from behind a root and got nailed on the side of the head. She shrieked, Pearl laughed.
“Truce, truce!” Gem finally called.
“You don’t have any more snowballs?” Pearl asked. She knew Gem too well to just assume that she wasn’t hiding a rouge snowball behind her back.
“No more!” She even held up her hands to show that they were empty. She slid off the tree and brushed loose powder off her coat. “That was so much fun.”
“Yeah, it was. I was obviously the winner.”
“And who decided that?”
“Me!”
— — — — —
The sun had almost fully dipped below the horizon. They had explored all around the lake, Gem even venturing out onto the ice itself. Now settled on the opposite side of the big fallen tree from before, Pearl tossed a handful of sticks beside Gem, who was building a fire.
“Thanks.” She carefully arranged a few of the sticks that Pearl had brought before pulling out her flint and steel. Three fast strikes and fire was catching, blooming in bright yellows and oranges.
There was silence, soaking up the welcome heat and light as it quickly became night. Hopefully, the fire would deter any mobs from straying close. If not, there would be two sharp swords to fix that problem.
“Goodness, I’m hungry. We did do a lot today.” Pearl remarked.
“But none of it was in the humid heat!” Gem offered. “This was such a nice break from that. Nothing beats the cold winter weather.” She watched the fire dance as Pearl twisted around to pull stuff out of her ender chest.
A full tripod stand and cast iron pot was produced and placed over the fire.
“Where did you even think to get that from?”
“I’m always prepared.” Pearl rummaged in a shulker box. “Especially when it comes to soup!”
Gem cheered.
The soup was poured into the cast iron pot and left to heat over the fire. They were both content to watch the fire or the trees gently swaying in the wind while it warmed. Pearl checked it occasionally before deeming it ready to eat. She carefully divided it into two bowls before handing one over to Gem.
Gem sniffed it, accepting a spoon. “What’s this one gonna do?”
Pearl scoffed. “Do you expect me to poison you?”
“You gave me a soup that blinded me once.”
Pearl flushed at the reminder. “And I haven’t made you eat that soup again, have I? This one is just some veggies and beef and broth. It should be fine.”
Deciding to trust her, Gem took a spoonful and blew on it to cool it down before eating it. She sighed. “Just a normal soup.”
“I told you!” Pearl happily ate her own soup. “I made the soup for the Soup Group for a reason. Not just questionable soups.”
They slurped their way through the bowls. Soup was always a good winter food, even if the members of the old Soup Group were fond of it at any time. Pearl stacked the empty bowls and dumped them in the ender chest. Gem snagged the tripod and pot and laid them in the snow to cool before having to put them away.
“Do you know what would be perfect?” Pearl asked.
“What?”
“Some smores.”
Gem shot up from the ground and lunged for the ender chest. “I think I might have something in here.” She dug around for a minute before tossing something out behind her. She shut the ender chest and held up the bag. “Voila!”
Pearl raised an eyebrow. “Gem. Those are just marshmallows.”
“If you don’t want any I’ll happily eat them.”
“I didn’t say that, gimme one.”
They used two of the spare sticks from building the fire to stick their marshmallows on. It was perfect after the savory soup. Gem fed the sticks to the fire once they had eaten their fill of the marshmallows.
Pearl flopped down on her back, staring up at the sky. Gem laid down next to her after a moment, adjusting something at her side. It was probably her sword, in case some mobs got too curious.
“Do you know any constellations?”
She pointed at a bright star. “That’s the North Star. It’s in the Little Dipper. And those stars next to it make up the Big Dipper.” She continued to point at stars and draw lines between them to make the constellations.
“Everything is so full of life and story,” Pearl finally said when Gem paused to take a breath. “I wonder if the simple things would have a story too if we stopped to appreciate them.”
“Like ‘stopping to smell the flowers’ type of little thing?”
Pearl took her time to answer. “Maybe. Or like, the most mundane things that we use every day. I don’t think those things get appreciated very often. I don’t think about how amazing it is that I have a door that lets me in and out, but keeps me safe at night by protecting me from unfriendly fellas.”
“Well, do you think that redstone has a story?”
“I think it can be made to have a story. Maybe it’s the intent behind it.”
Gem shoulder-shoved Pearl. “We’re builders, we put intent in everything. It’s a story that’s constantly being written and changed. That’s the beauty of it all.”
Pearl slowly exhaled, watching the air in front of her face fog up. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
— — — — —
It was after the fire had been put out and covered in snow. It was after Pearl had safely returned her tripod stand and cast-iron pot to her ender chest. It was after they had strapped their elytra back on. It was Gem who saw it first.
“Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, look!” Gem grabbed her arm and shook it. “Look at the sky!”
Laughing, Pearl looked up.
Thick ribbons of glowing green and deep purple drifted across the night sky. It cut between the stars and flowed over the full moon.
“The Northern Lights,” Gem breathed. “It’s gorgeous.”
Pearl didn’t say anything, transfixed by the light show. They stood in the dark, fire long gone, watching the Northern Lights wave across the sky. Only once they were gone did either of them finally move.
“That was the best possible end to this little vacation,” Gem declared. “This was amazing, Pearl.”
Pearl grinned wide. “I needed it just as much as you did. Probably good to get out of my noodles for some sun and fun.”
“You won’t get stuck down in a little redstone hole like Tango tries to do. I’d dig you out.” Gem laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get some sun. You can be like my little houseplant I put on a windowsill and watch.”
“Excuse me, I am not a little houseplant.”
The laughter was drowned out by the shriek of the rockets as they took off, flying back for the main Hermitcraft area and their bases.
— — — — —
The next day, any Hermit who ran into Pearl or Gem was curious why they smelled of wood smoke, since it had been too hot for anyone to want to start a fire. They didn’t ask, since nothing was burned down and no one was sporting bandages.
Tango asked Pearl where she had been the day before, when he had wanted to bounce some redstone noodle ideas off of her. Gem was cornered by Joel, who had wanted to try her totally secret, Not A Fight Club trident area since he had some new ideas.
Neither got an answer. Pearl simply said she was busy and must have missed his message. She offered to go and chat now, since she was free. Gem smacked Joel on the arm and said she’d go fight him then, unless he was too much of a coward now. Their raised voices could be heard across the river as they were too impatient to make it to the trident arena.
Unkipt Sun 31 Aug 2025 05:44AM UTC
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