Their third teammate was curled on her side under a light blanket, protesting weakly at the cold of the cloth.
What had started as unrelenting but manageable chills had given way to a fever so high that even Grian, who naturally ran higher than most as an avian, could feel it if he brushed against her.
Sorta an alternate take on Gem being sick the first session of Past Life, basically just Gem getting pretty ill and Pearl and Grian worrying + some found family Villies fluff
The first night in the lighthouse was peaceful. Despite Gem, Pearl and Grian’s enthusiasm about the idea of being the chaotic villains of the server this season, once the beds were made in their humble sandstone tower-base, all three were out like a light, thoroughly worn out from the first session. Especially Gem, whose body seemed to be having a rougher time adjusting to the new, less-polished beta world. She’d been pale and shivery the whole time, her voice raspy as if the fog of the out-dated landscapes burned her throat. Pearl and Grian hadn’t worried much, especially at Gem’s insistence that she was fine and simply needed a good night’s sleep in a proper base to get accustomed to the environment.
Grian woke slowly, sunlight from the window hitting the avian hybrid’s face as he opened his eyes groggily.
He sat up and stretched his wings out behind him until they touched the wall. They were brown and white this season, plus a little grey; he’d been unsure what species he was mixed with (he was always some sort of bird, but never the same type between life cycles) until Etho had shown him pictures of something called a “pootoo”, and apparently he’d “unhinged his jaw in a very similar way while laughing”, and that was good enough for him. Not quite as fabulous as his peacock features last season, but it was what it was.
He looked over at the other two beds along the wall near his. Pearl’s was empty; he guessed the moth hybrid had chosen to get an early start on the farm (it seemed the crops were somehow more sensitive in this less polished world), but Gem’s still held a Villie-shaped lump hidden entirely under the blankets. He squinted and realized with mild alarm that the lump was quivering violently. He could hear Gem’s uneven, almost rattling breaths from where he sat.
