Pearl couldn't die. Gems couldn't die of disease, Pearl reminded herself, as she was again heaving up fully bloomed flowers. It felt like she was dying—thorns clawing their way up her throat, scratching it and staining everything she spewed a toxic turquoise. But she wouldn't die.
She had seen people die from this, however. Pearl had seen hundreds and hundreds of humans die, choking as flower petals were stuffed out of their throats and through their mouths uncontrollably, everything drenched a bloody red. And in days after their death, their bodies would become overgrown with their sickness—a beautiful garden they gave their lives to tend to for their beloved.
Pearl could not die. She was still alive as flowers attempted to root inside of her. She heaved and shuddered in pain until the stalks grew long enough that she could reach into her mouth and rip the roots from their hold, dragging plant after plant through her open mouth, her own inner flesh clinging to their roots like dirt from the ground.
Only on Earth, Rose always said. Only on Earth this, only on Earth that. There were so many only on Earths that could be named, but it was this instance that plagued Pearl time and time again. Only on Earth was love such a rampant, consuming power that beings could become sick from neglect of it. Only on Earth could Pearl be struck with this fatal disease that could never ever kill her the way it stole mortal life after life.
This disease never festered inside of a human for much more than a couple of months; it was such a quick descent into sickness, one Pearl had taken many times. First, there was a pain in her chest, like her heartstrings were cutting tight around her lungs, wracking her with coughs. Eventually, torn bits of petals and leaves came out wet on her tongue, peeled off with guilty fingers and stuffed away where nobody could find the evidence of her suffering. They would soon get bigger, eventually becoming small clusters and unbloomed buds. Through the course of a few weeks, Pearl watched as the flowers bloomed inside her chest, coming out to rest in her hand, mangled and shredded, big enough to scrape her throat and earn adornments of turquoise blood. Dozens of beautiful flowers: the fact that it was flowers was such a miserable irony. Flowers were such the object of romance, and here the diseased were awarding it to themselves as they slowly waned to death because they would never recieve them from the object of their affections. In the last few days of life, the stems would shove up their throats in the most painful of developments, and the flowers would obstruct the airway completely, killing them. But not Pearl. Never Pearl. Pearl would rip out the plant from inside her and start the cycle again.
Pearl lost count of how many times she had passed death by from the disease alone. If she was capable of it, she would have died thousands of years ago at its hand. But she hadn't, and here she still was, faced with a mortal's death again.
Pearl had been coughing up fully formed blossoms for days, dying the water of her waterfall blue with blood as it swept all the evidence out of sight. She lay on her back next to the water, doing her best not to breathe as she gagged and held back tears of pain from the stem in her throat, unforgiving spines stabbing at her soft inner flesh. She stuck her hand down into her mouth, extending her physical form to reach the plant that was not so grown as to kill a human yet—but Pearl had learned by now it was rather unpleasant to wait so long to rip it out.
She grasped only at the silky petals of flowers, not yet mangled from the process of heaving them up her throat and not yet stained with her blood. She struggled, pushing farther, barely restraining a retch and lurching at the pain the contraction had caused. The tip of her finger skimmed the harder waxy stem—she twisted her fingers around to pinch it firmly and pulled, tipping her head back and dragging it up even as it left pure fire in its wake, thorns and points and crammed branches dragging up through her lungs and into her windpipe. The roots that had made their place inside of her skin were only pulled free with a harsh, two handed tug, and though it had never destroyed Pearl's form before, sometimes she anticipated it, what with the way the splintering pain shot throughout her chest and through her entire being. Egged on by the resonating pain radiating within her, she pulled the plant free at last, casting it aside, and allowed herself to roll onto her elbows and knees to cough and heave. She could not vomit up blood from her lungs, but it almost would be easier if she could, instead of having it expel in unsatisfying sprays with every burst of air.
After emptying the large majority of liquid from her lungs, Pearl stopped her hacking and simply tilted her head forward with her mouth open, letting it run a languid stream off her tongue, over her lip and drip onto the ground where the puddle resided. She opened her eyes at last to survey its size, wider than a dinner plate and ragged at its edges. Her eyes trailed over to where she had cast the plant aside. The roots were still tangled around bits of leaking turquoise flesh creating its own puddle. Branches that had gotten stuck or stuffed on their way up her throat were snapped or bent around. Thorns were tipped with blue, clever knives that had raked up the sides of her windpipe and still bore evidence. Most blossoms were mutilated past the beauty Pearl knew they could possess, ripped from their trip and stained with the blood that the thorns and branches had sown. A few closer to the base were not so exposed still appeared innocent and pure, undamaged and sheltered from carnage by other flowers and leaves.
Pearl dragged herself to her feet, very carefully not swallowing; she knew from experience it would only put her in a world of hurt. She walked over, stumbling with her first few steps, and retrieved the plant. Once picking it up off the ground, she commanded the edge of the pool of water to rise up over the edge and wash away the puddles, diluting them beyond recognition and sweeping them away. She stepped out into the water, toes only dancing on the surface, and leapt onto one of the waterfalls farther back, where she drew out the other plants she had grown.
There were hundreds and hundreds of plants that sprang free from the water, the stacks stretching up to the ceiling and circling all around her. The ones behind her were old and dead, nothing more than crisps that had not been knocked apart; the newest ones were washed free of turquoise and blooming anew, those buds that had been worn ragged having shed those petals or fallen away; all pain aside, she could call them beautiful. Pearl tenderly placed the newest plant in its slot, and for a moment stood to admire the dedication that laid in this collection. The adoration. She had taken brush after brush of death until it had composed a mural—a painting. With a solemn hand, Pearl waved it all away and it disappeared out of sight, where it belonged. No one could ever know.
Roses. Pearl always marveled at how befitting it was. Pearl always grew roses.