Chapter Text
Five thousand years.
Centuries of searching every inch of the planet earth, every ocean and every cavern, any island they came across and the highest peaks they climbed. Five thousand years of searching, and mourning, somehow, they had neglected to search here.
On the outskirts of this small human settlement in a cave in the forested cliffs of this small nearly insignificant mountain range, a human girl had found him.
His pearl.
Giorno (they had picked human names almost a hundred years ago) had picked up Mista within seconds of deciphering Narancia's excited ramblings and warped them to the closest warp pad to the location, and from there they had walked.
It's good gems like them don't get exhausted like humans do, because it was a long hike to the small human civilization nested in the valley of these mountains. Narancia brought him to the girl, who said she would bring them to the cave where she had discovered the strange creature.
And it was back to hiking.
Giorno didn't pay much attention to the scenery. There were more important things, but he knows not to hurry Mista. He unfortunately can't help his speed, and Narancia seems to be enjoying themselves at least. He's waited five thousand years, he should be able to manage another few hours.
The girl informs them they are halfway there when Mista saunters up beside him.
"So," Mista begins, taking his time like usual to get the words out, "are you excited?" Giorno turns his head to look at him.
"Or," Mista continues, "are you perhaps scared? It has been a loooooooooooooooong time since we've seen him."
"I am not scared Mista."
"Just thought I would ask." Mista pulls the neck of his sweater away from his mouth. "Considering the state he was in when we last saw him."
Giorno manages to put a smile on his face.
"Thank you for the concern Mista. But I can assure you I am not afraid. Now we might actually be able to bring him home."
That’s where the conversation ends, and Mista lags behind again as Narancia swings from trees and jumps through the branches to ‘scout ahead.’ Giorno doesn’t mind. He watches them frolic. It’s nice to see them so excited. He’s excited too. He’s missed him a lot.
Nearly an hour later, the girl announces they've arrived, and they all stop at the edge of a large circular perimeter. It’s nearly sixty feet in diameter, and there's no grass, no trees, no animals in sight, and in the center there’s a cave.
They can’t see the inside of the cave, it’s too dark, but the sight of the lifeless terrain just before them makes Giorno nervous. They had to help him, get him out of here and back home where he belongs.
The girl steps forward.
“Wait here. I’m going to check on him first.”
“I’m coming with you.” Giorno steps forward to follow, but he’s blocked by a hand on his chest.
“No. You'll scare him. He recognizes me. It’s safer if I go first.”
“You don’t need to worry about my safety, I assure you. He won’t harm me. He’ll know who I am.”
“Then wait here, and I’ll check to see if he’s home.”
Giorno steps forward, but he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns back to look at Mista, who’s staring at him. Narancia peaks over Mista’s shoulder. Giorno pauses.
“Very well. I will wait here.” He doesn’t like it, but he’d rather wait then have him run off again and take another thousand years to find.
The girl steps forward and reaches into her bag. Giorno watches her crouch low and pull out some kind of small pie from her bag as she moves closer. He can hear her speaking quietly.
“It’s me. I brought a snack.” Giorno can’t help but scoff. Pearl hated human food. He never liked eating. The girl continues. “There’s, uh. Other people here.” She sets the small pie down at the entrance of the cave. “They said they knew you, and they asked me to bring them here. Would you be willing to come out to see them?”
There’s a long pause of silence. Giorno wonders for a second if this girl lied to them, or made a mistake, but then there's a noise, a deep exhale of breath, and a growl, then movement. Big heavy footsteps. They’re slow and hesitant, then from the shadow of the cave entrance a large shape, bigger than the human girl, a pointed beak moves into the sunlight. Giorno feels himself lean forward. It’s the head of a large monstrous bird, five times the size of any gem.
It takes a long, deep inhale of breath, and the beak opens as it picks up the pie, tray and all, and swallows it whole, then it moves to the girl and repeats the same large inhale.
Giorno reaches to summon his weapon. He’s going to swallow the girl whole- but a hand blocks him, and he looks back up at Mista. Narancia stares forward as well. Their face is all crinkled up, and Giorno looks back.
The girl is petting him. She has her hand, tiny in comparison, on the creature's beak and she slowly backs up and she leads the creature out from the darkness of the cave.
“It really is him.” Mista sounds shocked, and Giorno doesn’t really believe it. The last they saw what they would soon begin to call the corrupted form of Pearl, of his pearl, was five thousand years ago when it first happened. Pearl had yelled out in fear, then turned and flown away into the distance. Is this where he’d been all these centuries? Tucked away in this forest?
Had he been scared?
Lonely?
Giorno watches the girl talk softly to the corrupted gem. She makes gentle strokes on his beak, and despite his lack of eyes, Pearl seems entirely focused on her.
Well at least he’s not flying away. It’s taking all his effort to not run forward to see him. But that would be dangerous, and there’s a human nearby. He would likely crush her in his panic. So he waits till the girl has him outside his cave, and she shows Pearl where they are, and she beacons them over.
“Slowly.” she enunciates. “Or you’ll freak him out.”
So Giorno moves slowly. Pearl probably doesn’t understand him, so he doesn’t speak. The girl tells the three of them to stop a few feet away, and now they can really get a good look at him.
He’s huge, with a serrated beak, he drools a little bit, and his feathers are white and purple. Giorno didn't know Pearl had a purple hue to him. He wonders why he didn't notice earlier. Pearl turns his huge head in their direction, obviously ansty at their presence, and the light shines through the semi-transparent material of his top mandible. They can’t see his gem on his body.
How are they going to get him back to the temple? The most obvious answer is to poof him here and bubble him. But he’s already antsy, and if he doesn't land a solid hit the first time he could flee again. Besides, the human girl might try to get in the way, and that isn’t something he wants to deal with right now. So they will have to wait. Bide their time.
He’s waited this long.
They return to visit once a week. It’s always with the girl- Sheila, Mista had asked for her name- and she always brings some kind of food.
They don’t really do much, mostly sit around outside the cave. Narancia had once attempted to go inside, but was met with a loud screech and a sharp beak, and that was that for their visit that week. Giorno insists they should just bring him back to the temple. It would be better for him here.
“He’s spent most of his time in that cave.” Mista interjects. “He’s comfortable there, and it’s not like he’s doing any harm.”
Mista as a point. He usually has a point.
So they leave him in his cave, with visits. Narancia starts to bring gifts which are met with caution, then curiosity, then they’re picked up and brought into the cave which they are not allowed to enter.
Mista sometimes brings food. They slowly learn his favorites. He has a thing for baked goods, especially pies, usually fruit ones. He likes strawberries. So they bring him fresh strawberries every week from Giorno’s garden. They’re gaining his trust. They gain enough trust to the point he waits for them outside his cave. Giorno wonders if he recognizes them. He wonders if he trusts them enough to come home.
Months pass, and Giorno decides to sneak out to the cave alone. If he can meet him without the human girl around, maybe he can lure him away. So he packs up a bag full of strawberries, and sneaks out while Mista and Narancia are sleeping, and he warps to the nearest warp pad and begins the long hike.
It’s no longer dark out when he arrives. The sun is just rising over the mountain peak and he finds the opening with no trees and no grass, and he slowly makes his way toward the cave entrance with the strawberries in his hands. It’s quiet, but if he listens hard enough he can hear soft snoring. The breathing of a large animal.
“Pearl?” Giorno calls quietly, and he sets some strawberries down at the entrance of the cave. “It’s me. It’s Giorno- Rose Quartz.” Pearl wouldn’t know him by his human name.
“I brought you something. Your favorites.” It’s quiet still. There’s just the soft breathing from inside the cave.
“Do you still remember me? Do you remember any of us?” He pauses. As if he is waiting for a response. “Do you remember home? The temple? Or Spinel? Hawks eye? We go by human names now. It was Spinel’s idea about a hundred years ago. I go by Giorno. It means day in a human language.” He thinks he hears shuffling from inside the cave.
“Spinel misses you, Narancia does. I can tell. They like to talk about you sometimes. What you would hate about what we’ve done to the temple, about how you would love to explain the historical importance of it.”
He feels movement. Heavy footsteps as he moves closer.
“Would you like to see it? Would you like to come home?”
The familiar sight of a large purple beak, with a semi transparent top half slowly moves out from the shadows. It sniffs and it lowers its beak to the strawberries. Then it picks one up and swallows it.
Slowly, carefully, Giorno reaches a hand out. The beak doesn’t move away as he gets closer.
“Please come home Pearl,” He touches the beak, and it doesn’t move away. It’s smooth like glass, and cold like it too. He continues to pick up the strawberries one by one, and Giorno keeps his hand on the beak.
Then it moves away, returning to the shadows.
Giorno sits there. Maybe he doesn’t recognize him. Maybe he never will. Five thousand years of distance. Five thousand years apart.
His pearl.
Giorno stands up and begins to walk away.
Then he stops.
No. No way. He came here to bring him home. To bring his pearl home. He’s not going to just give up. He turns back to the cave, and he marches forwards.
He marches into the darkness of the cave.
His eyes adjust quickly. Quickly enough to catch the large shape in the back of the small cavern as it turns and opens its beak with a loud screech, and runs for him. He’s caught off guard and the creature rams into him and knocks him back and he feels himself go flying out of the cave and hit the ground on his back. Then it’s on top of him and screaming into his face. He feels something wet land on his arms as they fly up to cover his head.
Then he hears a loud thud, and the creature flies off him.
“Giorno!” Giorno raises his head up to look at the voice. It’s Mista, Narancia runs up beside Giorno to help him too his feet. “What are you doing! What did you do!”
Giorno looks around to see where the creature landed. It’s getting up now, water dripping from it’s beak onto the ground below it as it stands up to charge again.
“I-” Giorno doesn't know what to say, but Mista might see something on his face, because he turns to face the creature.
“Later. Right now we need to calm him down.”
“Right…” and they all turn to face the creature.
“Narancia! Restrain him!”
“On it!” And Narancia jumps forward and extends their limbs, wrapping them around the length of the creatures entire body. It stumbles and falls over, unable to move.
Mista and Giorno move in. Neither of them want to poof him, but they might have too. They move in closer, but before they can get close enough, the creatures throat begins to inflate.
“Move!” Mista calls just in time as the creature opens its mouth and a spray of some kind of steaming liquid spews out of to try and hit them. They both dodge just in time. “The beak, Narancia! The beak!”
“Sorry!” but the creature rolls, squishing Narancia below him, and it forces its wings open. It’s free. And it raises its foot high over Narancia, prone on the ground. They curl up.
And just as it begins to lower its foot to crush them, it stops, then explodes in a cloud. Giorno lowers his spear as the cloud vanishes, and Pearl's gem lands softly in the dirt.
Then it’s quiet again.
“I’m sorry.” Giorno speaks first. He reaches down to pick up Pearl’s gem. “I had hoped, maybe I could bring him home.”
“This is his home now. We shouldn’t try to displace him.” Mista puts a hand on Giorno's shoulder, and Narnacia stands up to wrap their arms around his leg. “This is where he wants to be.”
“But-” Giorno can feel himself starting to shake. He closes his hand around the gem and raises it to his chest. “I miss him.”
He feels arms wrap around him from behind.
“I miss him too, Giorno.” Mista hugs him tight. Giorno only trembles harder, and Narancia stretches up to hug the both of them together.
“I miss him too.”
~~~~~
Weeks later. Giorno sets the bubble with pearls gem down on the floor of the cave. They added a few decorations to it. A newer, softer nest, a large water bowl, food, and the gifts Narancia had given him each of their visits. Giorno releases the bubble and backs up as it starts to float, and it flashes through forms until it grows, and it twists into the large form of the bird again.
He extends his wings, preparing for a threat, but he’s met with a bowl of strawberries.
“Welcome home, Pearl.”
“We hope you like it.”
