When the session ends, Gem watches as her snail retreats back to her shell, no longer determined to kill her.
It makes sense, she thinks.
Gem still remembers wanting to kill and hurt, wanting to sink her teeth into the other players' skin and watch them bleed. And even more clearly, she remember the frustation she felt when she failed to do so.
Her snail must feel the same way, and now defaulted to sulking.
God, she is so cute! Gem is going to miss her deadly little face next session.
She kneels down next to her and lets a soft sigh escape.
"Yeah, yeah. I know the feeling, buddy..." she pats her shell "Take your time, let it all out."
Her snail doesn't try to give any response, still bundled up in her shell. Gem rolls her eyes, smiling. So stubborn, who did she even get it from?
Gem leaves her be, knows that sooner or later the snail will give in. The snail may be mad now, but if Gem knows herself, she probably won't stay mad forever.
Probably.
She tends to the wheat while she waits, one knee planted to the ground, until she feels a slimy touch on her ankle.
"Finally getting out of your shell, huh?" Gem looks down and frowns.
Looking at her was not her cute snail, with her orange shell and bright green eyes. Instead, the snail that touched her had light blue beady eyes, a brown shell and seemed to have hair.
" Did Pearl put you up to this?" Gem makes a face, clearly displeased with her visitor "Is she really making her own snail bother me now?"
Pearl's snail only tilted her body in response, eyes lightly hitting eachother from the movement.
Gem hated that she found that endearing.
"Go back to your player. I have enough problems to deal with and I'm not looking foward to add babysitting to the list."
She tried to go back to the wheat, she really did. But Pearl's snail nuzzled onto her leg and bumped her shell against her ankle. Gem looked back to her and the snail's eyes seemed to shine for her.
Sighing, she turned to the snail and sat cross-legged in front of her. Pearl's snail let out a excited sound and hopped into Gem's lap, nuzzling once she settled herself.
" This is a bad idea." Gem says, but lets the snail stay and after a moment, brings her hand to stroke her shell "You're not supposed to be here. Or like me. She betrayed me, you know? You should treat me like that, too."
The snail only anwer is to munch lightly on the side of Gem's thumb where it is resting on her own thigh, not at all aiming to hurt. It is such a dumb, senseless gesture. Gem feels like a dagger was just carved into her back and feels t twist, makes her get misty-eyed.
She stops looking down at Pearl's snail, it's become too much. Instead, she tries to look at her own snail but finds she is nowhere to be found.
Gem can only hope she isn't crawling into Pearl's lap.
