((Quick author's note again.  The song used for this chapter is based on the tune Biffa sings at 1:54 in the vid above, excluding some improvisation and the final part/Pearl's part.  That part is based on the Centaurworld song "Fragile Things", but just Horse's half of the duet (I call it Fearless but it's not its own song in like any iteration of it so idk), which I have linked right below.  Enjoy!

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

-Author K))

Pearl was on a boat, floating in the middle of a vast sea. There was another person with her, a man she knew very well as one of her closest friends, though if you asked her about him now she wouldn't have a clue.  She didn't feel the need to look up at him in the moment, in fact, she kept her eyes shut their entire interaction.

You could tell everybody
The sea is for anybody
But be sure to tell nobody
That this is all I need

The strumming of the guitar as he sang was enough to calm Pearl's nerves, not like the soft waves gently rocking the oak below her were impeding that in the first place.  She knew this song just as well has her friend did, and she also knew that the next part was her's. 

I know that we will find a way
We do this like every other day
But no matter how hard the boat sways
We're still us and that never will change

In the moment, Pearl could remember everything.  She knew where she was, she knew the people who were here, she knew what she could do and have done.  To ever think that the man in the boat beside her's would ever be a stranger to her again was bizarre.  These weren't strangers.  These were two great friends ready to harmonize with each other.

Should we count our loss
Should we change direction from where we're headed across
Should we find and listen to the moss
That grows on the north side of the trees

Usually that was where the song ended.  But the song was older than they knew, and so Pearl had added her own twist on it.  She never remembered where she learned the new tune from, even in her non-amnesiac times, but it always brought her a deal of comfort.

I would still be proud of you
Cause you are still around
And we are still allowed
To be here

Her friend knew the extra part by now.  They sang in harmony once again.

Cause you know it's only me
And we are everything

"Hey, Pearl," said her friend after a short bout of silence, putting his guitar down, "do you plan on... staying?"

"Whaddya mean?" Pearl asked. "Like, here?"

"Yeah, are you gonna be staying here for a while?" He reiterated. "Most of the people here spend most of, if not all of their time around, but they've always been here, since the very beginning. You just got here, what? Half a year ago? I was just wondering if you had anywhere else to go,"

"Mm," Pearl thought about her answer. "Not really, no. All the other places I lived in don't have anyone around anymore, if they had anyone to begin with. I almost forgot how nice it was to build in a world with other people. Gives ya a sense of inspiration, y'know?"

"Ah, I get that," he said. "I could name a lot of things that wouldn't exist here right now if it was just the person who built it and no one else around. In fact, I know for sure that one of those things is your's,"

"Oh, c'mon," said Pearl, waving her hand dismissively, "I'm Australian, I was always gonna end up building something upside down,"

"But were you always gonna end up building a boat?" He asked.

"...eh, probably not. Maybe you're right," Pearl chuckled before suddenly feeling an animal's paw press against her chest. She thought she didn't have to look to know who it was.

"Hey, could ya keep your cat in your boat?" Pearl jokingly scolded, not actually minding the feline invading her personal space. "Jellie's going to smush me flatter than a pancake if you keep letting her think I'm a sidewalk,"

There was no response to her words.

"Hello?" Pearl called out. Now concerned, she opened her eyes to suddenly lose the feeling of the boat beneath her, it being completely replaced with the hardened sandstone floor. The sun was just beginning to rise, so she couldn't see it from where the window on the second floor was located, but she could definitely feel the intense heat pouring through it, ready to torment anyone wearing the same heavy and dark clothing she wore. The paw pressing against her was not the cat she suddenly remembered, but rather Tilly, holding Pearl's axe in her mouth as she was trying to wake her owner up from her deep slumber.

"...right, what's all this then?" Pearl asked, sitting up and happily taking her weapon back from her wolf. Speaking of the canine, Tilly now dawned 2 pairs of black leg warmers for each of her 4 paws, bright green crescent moons on the fronts of each of them to almost match the leg and arm warmers Pearl wore, the difference being that the wolf hybrid had yellow moons instead. She didn't question the wolf's sudden change in fashion, it was what all tamed animals tended to do around people. It made it much easier to distinguish who's pet was who's when you had armies of them all trying to crowd in the same area.

Pearl grabbed her bag from the floor, checking inside to make sure the red book was still in there. It was, and so she pulled it out for a second and turned to her companion.

"Alright, here's the deal Tilly," she said, "the guy who wrote this told his husband to 'take care of the flowers', so I'm assuming they lived in a flower forest. If we can go through that forest just across from here, there's a chance that we can find that guy and one, give him the message back, and two, get some information about this place.  Ya got that?"

Tilly softly yapped in response, her tongue hanging out of her mouth as she panted heavily from the heat.  It almost looked like she was smiling, though of all the moments to smile, it was definitely not while the sun was beating down on you like a piñata at a little kid's birthday party. 

"Right, we'll get ya out of this heat too," Pearl said, wiping her own sweat off of her forehead and taking off her black hoodie to tie around her waist, "the desert is no place for heavy coats like us,"

The two unblocked the stairway and left to the first floor, walking out of the front door instead of the back wall hole they came in from. Before going down the darkened sandstone stairs, however, Pearl noticed something on the cliffside. It looked like a dark box of some kind, with a pillar of wood standing tall behind it and a banner planted on the left side. She walked over to investigate it further to find it was a wooden gravestone, wiping off the ash that covered the words chipped into it

"'Here lies Pizza, the greatest llama to have ever lived in the Sandlands,'" Pearl read the headstone out loud. Tilly sniffed at the banner, the scent all too familiar to her. The banner projected a slice of pepperoni pizza across it, a black background filling in the blank area.  Pearl noticed her companion smelling the fabric. 

"Whatcha gettin'?" She asked, as if she were going to get a helpful response. Somehow, she actually did get a helpful response, in the form of Tilly walking past the grave and pointing her nose to a small structure in the distance. It looked like it was made out of sandstone, much like the castle, but unlike the castle, it was also lined with something black, which Pearl assumed to be obsidian. It had a small hole in the front of it, and something laying down right outside the structure, but still inside the perimeter of the empty moat that went all the way around it. In the ground outside was the largest crater either of them had ever seen, going deep enough to touch the stone below the sandstone.

"...is that the bunker?"  Pearl asked to herself, quickly grabbing the red book and flipping it open to read the first few lines again.  "Yeah, this did say he was in a bunker, and it's pretty out in the open too.  Someone definitely would have to be a distraction if people were trying to hide in there.  Whaddya think Tilly?"

Pearl looked down to find the canine no longer staring off the edge of the charcoal cliff.  Instead, she turned around to see Tilly taking a bath in the small pool of water in the middle of the farm. Pearl sighed. 

"Alright, we can go check it out another time then," Pearl said, figuring the desert was too hot at the moment to stay in for much longer. Their footsteps left paw prints embedded in the ash, stepping down the longer than anticipated stairway and continuing forward to the prickly cactus wall and lava moat.

Pearl looked around for a moment, trying to see which way she should lead herself to.  She almost went south towards the bunker they spotted earlier, but her mind was quickly changed when she turned behind her to see a river flowing through the desert, headed in the exact opposite direction. Her first instinct was to follow the flowing water, which she and Tilly did.

She didn't even have time to consider that this might have been a bad idea before, after a bit of walking back from the direction she came, she found an area where there was a cobblestone and obsidian end to the moat, followed by the end to the wall of cacti as well.  It made way for the river to pass through, giving the duo a clear pathway towards the burnt forest. The only problem was that this clear pathway was made up solely of the river, so they would have to swim across to get to the other side, but even that wasn't much of a problem. The desert was far too hot to complain about cold water.

Pearl threw her leather bag to the other side, not willing to test and see if it was waterproof when a very valuable paper-filled book was inside.  Thankfully, the toss landed it right where the ashy sand stopped and the charred grass started. Without a second thought, she followed Tilly into the water and swam out to the other side.

Maybe the cold waters would've been nice in the smoldering desert, but now in the forest (which, rather amazingly, held its regular temperature despite the apocalyptic nightmares that apparently tormented it), it was just that. Cold water. Getting out of the river sent shivers down Pearl's spine as she shook alongside Tilly to dry herself off.

Without the wall of cactus blocking it, Pearl now saw a swamp just across from the forest, which the river led in to.  Tilly, now with a spider gut-free snout (the missing stain now washed off in the waters), looked towards it in a sort of longing. 

"...is that where you live?"  Pearl asked.  Tilly just looked up at her and did a friendly growl, you know, that sort of noise that dogs make sometimes when they want to bark but for whatever reason know they can't, so they just kinda whine-growl. 

"Well now we have to go, since you're just gonna peak my curiosity," she said.

And with that, Pearl took out the dark oak planks she'd taken earlier and made herself a boat, getting Tilly to hop in the back while the hybrid rowed into the rotting swamp. She thought about how she could've made the boat earlier to get across the river just then, but figured there were more important things to ponder about, and so let the thought fade in the back of her mind.