Greetings from my car in the parking lot at my place of work during a lunch break! I was hoping to wrap this up last night so it could be up early in the morning, but obviously it was a bit of a lofty goal.
So here we are. Hope you enjoy a later upload all the same~
This is an idea I've had for a little while that got supercharged and bumped to the line by the release of Side Order — which I haven't fully completed (still a few weapon clears to go), but have enjoyed immensely! Pearlina real. I seriously don't think I've seen Nintendo ever release a gayer piece of content?
There's no real spoilers in this, it takes place well before the events of Splatoon 3, but I used some of the lore reveals in Side Order to add extra flavor. Fair warning to anyone out there who wants to avoid any and all DLC info before playing it.
It's also come to my attention that I released this on 3/8/24, which means a story about Agents 3 and 8 probably would've been more appropriate... But I hadn't thought about it ahead of time.
Eight is mentioned though? Eight name drop real?
Pearl drags her bare feet across porcelain in broad sweeps (as much as her squat legs can manage). Every step is a squeaking slide across a fretboard, punctuated by a squishy drumbeat where their toes plant to steady her next exhausted motion; the backing track resonates with a dirge of pecking piano keys that haunt the dim space.
Orchid notes of the witching hour flood into this penthouse apartment from wall-to-wall windows at Pearl's left. Downtown light pollution obscures the stars. Even so, a crystal-clear view of Moray Towers rising from a sea of clouds is enough to justify the apartment's obscene real estate value, especially when Splatfest lights blaze on.
Pearl guides their sleepy eye-mask by the procession of RIAI neon vinyls over elegant gold wallpaper to her right, songs separated by fluted columns of spotty marble:
Violet
Presented to
Off The Hook
to commemorate the sale of more than 500,000 copies of the single record
"Muck Warfare"
Green
Presented to
Off The Hook
to commemorate the sale of more than One Million copies of the single record
"Acid Hues"
Green
Presented to
Off The Hook
to commemorate the sale of more than One Million copies of the single record
"Nasty Majesty"
Yellow
Presented to
Off The Hook
to commemorate the sale of more than Two Million copies of the single record
"Ebb & Flow"
Red
Presented to
Off The Hook
to commemorate the sale of more than Ten Million copies of the single record
"Color Pulse"
Pearl reaches up her oversized teal tee, bunching the perfectly angular face and quaffed hair of a shojo protagonist to scratch at a shoulder-to-shoulder crown tattoo. Wings of smaller inked portraits flutter out from the crown and down Pearl's arms, filling her peachy skin with sleeves of musical iconography, logos from her winning Splatfest teams, and the signatures of all her favorite people rendered in her iconic pink shade — Marina's biggest of all.
However, they let the shirt drop back over sleek pink boyshorts when crossing into a cone of warm, ambient light from the haunting music's source.
Marina sits at a glossy black piano on the other side of the threshold. She's framed dead center in a chasmous foyer lined with a pair of modern splat-patterned sectionals and glass cases. On display are award statuettes, crystalline art pieces, and one conspicuously charred piece of some waterlogged vessel's hull. Stepping into the foyer, the antiseptic scent of wealth and air-dried cleaning products gives way to a wafting perfume: citrus vanilla, with a hint of motor oil.
The Octoling intensely analyzes a paperback set above the piano's keys, blind to everything else. She mechanically depresses ivories with the speed of a paralarva walking on their bipedal legs for the first time.
Marina's dark eye rings appear deeper, and yesterday's outfit — a sleeveless white turtleneck tank and rolled blue jeans — looks disheveled from extra hours.
Pearl eventually adjusts to the light, enough to move their hands from their eyes. That makes it easier to take a leaping step and slam on the piano's closed lid, which jostles a half-eaten bowl of flaky cereal in now-congealed slime. Marina screeches, launches a discordant note (not unlike a hissing Splat Bomb) with both hands, and loses the bandana that held her long, outward-suctioning tentacles.
"Yo! 'Rina!" Pearl booms. She plods back on her heels and crosses her arms. "Heck're you doin' up so early?!"
"Early…?"
Marina wipes her eyes before looking to the bleak haze outside a far window.
"Yeah, early. It's, like, 3:00 a.m." The Inkling fidgets from a standstill, imperceptibly waving their head back-and-forth as their right leg bounces. "How long have you been up?"
"Uhm…" Marina towers over Pearl, even as the lanky Octoling curls her knees to her chest, to gnaw on her pointer finger. Her accented voice escapes in meek mumbling. "When did you go to bed, Pearlie?"
"10 o'clock?"
"Then… At least five hours?" Marina looses a creaking chuckle.
"Marina Ida!" Pearl's hands shift to their hip, and they project to the nosebleeds. "Ya can't keep doin' this, girl! It's not like you need the beauty sleep — you're GORG as ever — but it ain't healthy to be burnin' at both ends."
Marina deflates, nodding in concession.
"I know. Sorry." She closes her eyes and dips her face behind a cover of teal-tinged tentacles. "I just got excited ~ like, super excited. I had to learn this piece ASAP!"
She follows-up with a gentle reminder: "It's sweet how much you care."
Pearl's Napoleonic stature softens. They twirl on their heels and march around the piano. Her teardrop eyebrows contort, barely visible in their natural blonde hue.
"New piece, eh? Some'n good?"
Marina's regression reverses course. Now, her features blossom with the encouragement to speak in singsong enthusiasm.
"Very good! And very unique~"
"Mm?"
As Pearl takes Marina's side, they sweep up her fallen bandana and jump onto the piano stool. This gives them just enough height to start tying the Octoling's tentacles. Meanwhile, Marina pulls her book free to present its cover:
Let's Learn Beethoven!
Beginner Piano Sheet Music from History's Great Composers, Book 2
"Eight gave me this as thanks for inviting her on the world tour!" Marina squees.
"Whoa!"
Pearl's hands stop their delicate work so she can stare dumbfounded at the green post-it note stuck over some old mammalian face; it takes her a long time to mouth through the Octarian translation of this unusual alphabetical text.
They're only through early lessons in Marina's native tongue.
"… Dude's NAME was 'Beat-havin'?" Pearl grins with a rapturous laugh. "That's a sick MC name if I've ever heard one!"
Marina giggles along. "It is pretty sick, isn't it~?"
Pearl goes back to their styling, their tongue juts out in concentration.
"It's an artifact of Old World music culture raided from a holdover Kamabo facility. The way this thing was preserved is incredible!" The irony of how tightly Marina clutches the book to her bosom is clearly lost on her. "Between all the plastic and air-tight storage, there's hardly any mold on these pages!"
She opens it to double-sided lined sheets like any other, headlined in barely legible Octarian scribble over completely illegible typography: "Moonlight Sonata."
"This one's my favorite so far ~ I figured we could try to sample something in one of our next singles." Marina presents an endearingly crooked, single-toothed smile to Pearl, ticking like a gear. "Candy-Coated Rocks' does not a full album make."
Pearl scoffs, a gurgling noise.
"Sounds to me like you're thinkin' too small, 'Rina! 'Candy-Coated Rocks' is gunna take the UNIVERSE by storm…" They finish Marina's hair with a flourish, pulling her bandana's bunny-eared bow tight, and then hop off the stool.
From there, they saunter back over to the piano's lid and lean against it.
"… But let's hear what ya got."
Marina squees twice as enthused, and drops her sneakers to the floor with a rhythmic clap. However, her servos slow upon placing her teal-tinged fingertips on the ivory keys. She swallows a lump of nerves.
"Um. Please remember, I only started learning this yesterday!" Her tone bleeds apologia. "And it's also transposed from an entirely different culture. S-So if it doesn't sound perfect, don't think that I—"
Pearl interrupts by slamming a hand on the piano. Marina's cereal bowl twirls on its smooth foot.
"Hey, I didn't say make excuses. I said let's hear what ya got!" The pop princesses' golden eyes glint. They twirl their free hand in the air to pump up the crowd. "We don't have all night, 'Rina."
"Okay!" Marina bows in deference. "Right, sorry."
The Octoling closes her infinite eyes to the world. She takes a few steadying breathes, and sets her hands in position again. Her elbows bend to crooked fingers, both closer to the left side of the board. Marina's lips, caked with long-dried starry gloss, wiggle as she repeats the notes. An ex-soldier's biceps bulge as her arms tense.
Then, her show begins with a long, deep note plunged into the silent night.
Marina holds this note with her left hand as the right accompanies its reverberating twang through a series of short triads, each component ascending in tone, but never raising the whole set. The triads continue steadily as Marina's left hand must reset its endless backing; the long note falls deeper and shorter at every swap.
Pearl's stomach churns seeing Marina's expression form a melancholic statue, her crescent eyebrows furrowing. Black pushes in at the edges of Pearl's vision until all she can see is Marina sitting in the void, befitting this dour opening.
However, the Octoling's lips tick to a smile, as she gets further in.
The steady rhythm slows for a beat, after which Marina's left hand twitches into an extension of three fingers for a fuller backing note. Her practiced triads open at a lower octave. They rise up the scale until Marina is able to comfortably add a fourth long tone via her right pinky; the higher sound adds a light air to the entire affair, as though the moon has crested. Pearl watches Marina's angelic features crack through the void, dark skin glowing under the cold light of this prairie in which they've been transposed.
Marina sways to the constant thrumming hammers, forehead freed of wrinkles even though her eyes remain shut.
Her sound blooms as the performance evolves from tickled ivories to energetic, swirling notes like late autumn leaves on the breeze, losing any distinct segregation between left and right stereo, between backing and trilling triads.
Teal fingertips press with voracity. Marina's hum adds a second track.
For Pearl, she twirls through a field of lilacs and roses, of moon-drenched dew on strange and beautiful flowers that have long-since gone extinct; their names are lost to the annals of history. Only the Octoling, classical knowledge made flesh, is privy to their ancient designs.
Pearl can only look upon Marina in awe, a goddess prancing through the fruits of her creation. Pink runs up from the tips of her pixie tentacles, just as it envelops their face — right down to the mole below her lip.
Then, the tune halts.
Marina raises her teal digits, and lets the current harmonious note fade on its own. Her split mask and button nose wrinkle as her eyes tighten with a deep breath.
Her hands descend back to Inkopolis from the stars.
She recaptures the song's orderly pattern by planting her left ring finger and thumb. The culmination of the tune comes with one last set of triads, softer as they count down:
5, 1-2
4, 1-2
3, 1-2
2, 1-2
Piano wire reverberates as Marina eases off the keys. Only a minute has passed since the performance began, but she's panting from the exertion of bearing one's soul.
Marina's eyes flutter open, a rising tide of teal iris with iridescent infinities reflecting through each pool.
Pearl's throat pulses as they struggle to find their voice.
"You're so beautiful."
Marina pulls her hands into her lap, and then offers her partner a courtly glance.
"What was that, Pearlie?"
"Mm. Said…" Pearl clears her throat to regain a fraction of her seismic sound. "'s a beautiful piece, 'Rina. Just... Not sure it's really our vibe, y'know?"
The Octoling's core systems shut down in real time. She tries hiding the abject despair behind her tentacles again, but… Damn it, Pearl is just too good at accessorizing!
"Right… I-I understand…"
That mumble is followed by Marina's silent self-admonishments in her native tongue, and fingers thrashing in an ever-morphing ball. Pearl leaps into action — or, more accurately, Pearl weaves beneath the raised piano to beeline toward Marina, taking the most straightforward path possible without ramming into its pedals. They catch Marina's cheek in a tender embrace from below, much to her surprise.
"Chin up, 'Rina! I dinn't mean nothin' by it." Pearl's grin practically engulfs her slight stature at this angle. "The bones are there, y'know? We just gotta put a dope 'Off the Hook' spin on it!" They wink. "You're an EXPERT at that."
Tears roll down Marina's face, but the dark streaks come from pure, lighthearted joy. She presses Pearl's hand into her cheek by engulfing it within her own massive palm.
"Oh, Pearlie!" She sniffles, and lets a giggle gurgle out. "You're so cool."
"Yeah, yeah."
Pearl bows, and then tries her best to snag a seat beside Marina without disrupting their contact. Eventually they succeed in settling down, twig hip-to-bell hip.
"I'm thinkin' those three-note bits you're doin' are solid. Maybe we can just make 'em a li'l faster. I can scream in the background. Boom! New catch for Off the Hook!"
"Oh, yeah ~ I can do that!"
Marina drags Pearl's hand down to her thigh, and leaves it on the satin pillow so she can crack her knuckles. Then, she returns to the keys.
This time the triads of "Moonlight Sonata" are delivered at a faster clip, with Marina not letting her finger loose until the next key is depressed. Nine thrums play over a higher-toned note.
Pearl throws both arms in the air and leans back; she's laughing so hard she practically falls off their stool.
"Now THAT is more like it!" Pearl's voice booms, drawing a smile from Marina. "Really putting your tentacle to the metal there, 'Rina!"
The Octoling pauses, and with a hum, starts to rub her chin.
"I like that…"
Off the Hook's songwriting lasted all of five minutes. Marina couldn't help but fall asleep in her partner's tender embrace.
Pearl would worry about washing the drool out of their hair in the morning.