Questioning Comets

They'd met up a few times now and each time was an experience that Pearl found herself thinking about long after it was over. They talked a lot. Well... mostly Pearl talked and she would listen. She liked to listen, Pearl noticed. Even though there were times that Pearl would wonder if she understood half of what Pearl was saying, she always seemed fascinated by it. Sometimes she asked questions just to hear the answers that Pearl would give.

On one such night, they were sat looking out at the stars. Which left Pearl with a strange feeling inside anyway. Thinking about homeworld was difficult for a lot of reasons and that was why Pearl wasn't fully prepared for her next question.

“What do you think shooting stars are?” she asked, “They say that they're bits of comets or something, yeah? But you always talk about space so much, I bet you think they're something different.”

As usual, Pearl scoffed at the silly ideas humans came up with to explain what they didn't understand. Comets? As if what fell to their planet from space was even half as simple! If only they could understand that gems from out beyond their own star were coming here to Earth and not all of them were friendly. If only they knew that-

...That was when Pearl looked into her face. The face of this human who hung onto her every word and looked at her with eyes filled with a kind of intrigue that Pearl didn't see from many other people, least of all someone who barely knew her. Telling her something so awful would be going too far, Pearl decided.

“Oh, I don't know. What do you think?” Pearl dismissed.

“You're evading,” she replied.

“Well... yes, but... there are some things I don't want to say,” Pearl muttered, “Sometimes it's better not to, if you think it might hurt someone.”

“Come on, I can handle anything,” she said.

“Well then, you can handle me not telling you what I think they are,” insisted Pearl.

That made her laugh. She tilted her head back and laughed boldly into the sky, as if mocking the shooting stars up there that she had no answer to. Pearl watched her and admired her so fondly...

“All right, I'll handle it,” she hummed, after she'd finished laughing at the night, “So I guess my next question is... do you want to meet here again next week?”

Pearl didn't hesitate on the answer to that one.

“Yes.”