Ice magic. That was certainly a surprise. Pearl hums as she and Stress sit facing the water. They're sitting on the cliff in front of Stress' tea pot. She;s explaining Ice magic to Pearl.

"Since you have ice magic now," Stress starts as she stands up, brushing her shorts off, "I think you need this." She pulls an allium out of her inventory, "The mark of the ice queen." She giggles.

"Thanks," Pearl grins as she encases it in beautiful crystal clear ice, "You've been a life saver."

"Aww it's nothin." She waves her hand dismissively.

Pearl shakes her head then looks out across the bay, "No, Stress, I could have frozen like half the server," She puffs out a breath of icy air, "You're awesome."

"Oh, stop it," She giggles, "magic can be tricky. Any of us could have shown you."

Rolling her eyes Pearl shrugs, "Eh, fair..."

Their conversation continues as the sun starts to set and well into the night.

________________

Humming as she wanders her base Pearl grins.

She got off pretty easy. No weird feachers, no extra limbs, no overly strange powers. Just the ability to create ice.

Something in the back of her mind whispers not to tempt fate, but honestly at this point she's too relieved to care. She got the ice powers a couple of weeks ago and nothing else has popped up yet.

She's probably in the clear...

____________

The next morning-ish; she had woken up later than normal, she looks in the mirror as she brushes her teeth.

"Oh crap."

Yeah, uh, definitely not in the clear, two long. Fluffy... Things are perched on top of her head...

"What am i some kind of ice bunny?"

Taking a photo she send it in the main chat

PearlescentMoon: Anyone know what these are?
PearlescentMoon: [Photo]

PearlescentMoon: I guess the transformation isn't as done as I thought.

Xisuma: Oh my goodness me

Xisuma: I'll look it up

Keralis1: :D

Keralis1: Bug Buddy!

PearlescentMoon: WHAt?

PearlescentMoon: ....

Keralis1: you have antenna

Placing the communicator back on the counter Pearl stares blankly at the mirror. The antenna twitches and move around trying to feel out the environment. Cringing away from the sensation Pearl freezes as they move, twisting into some sort of hood.

"Ok," She whispers to herself, "I can deal with this..."

"It's fine..."

A sharp pain flairs on her sides and she falls to the ground.

Something snaps.

Her ribs feel like they're burning. Something is shifting under her skin. It doesn't break the skin but it burns. Leaving angry red welts on her sides. It looks almost like a bone poking at the skin.

...Did the meteor just break my ribs?

Pearl binks up at the ceiling, unable to move from the pain.

As soon as the pain came, it fades into nothing but a dull throb.

Slowly standing she grips the counter. The bumps under her arms are still growing...

Snagging her comm she shakily moves onto a private chat with Keralis.

PearlescentMoon > Keralis

PearlescentMoon: hey can you come over

Keralis: Of course,

Keralis: What's wrong

PearlescentMoon: I think i might be getting extra arms.

Keralis: oh nos

Keralis: ill be right over.

True to his word Keralis arrives in just a few minutes.

"Hey Pearly," He whispers, "How ya doing?"

"Im, ok right now." She huffs out, "Everything just feels weird."

"Yeah," He waves one of his hands, "I feel that."

They talk for a bit, discussing what it feels like to have the extra set of arms, and how to deal with it.

The bumps throb in pain if anything touches them or they get hit, but they don't hurt too bad on their own.

___________

The next morning is when things really start to change. The extra arms have fully grown in, and they hurt.

New nerves and muscles twinging and reacting to every little input.

Grinding her teeth Pearl shakes her head and does her best to get ready for the day.

There's a lot more of a struggle than she's used to, but honestly that's expected... Keralis had done the best he could to prepare her.

But nothing compares to the horror of waking up with new limbs, completely different, yet entirely the same.

The movements and the look are familiar, but the very presence of the arms is deeply disturbing.

The arms are recognised as being there but the brain sees them as strange things simply stuck onto her body.

It's an entirely odd sensation.

___________

As the days pass the arms become more and more a part of her. She learns to move them, hold things, and use them.

"Pearl!" Ren shouts as he trots over to her base, "How are you doing?"

"Hey Ren," She grins, waving with one of her new hands, "I'm doing ok."

Ears twitching Ren's tail wags, "That's good."

Smiling Pearl's gaze lingers on the tail, "How does that feel?"

"What? Oh." He sits on the grass and pulls his tail into his lap, "It's weird you know... like sometimes it's fine, but," he sighs, "I don't want it." He tightens his grip on the tail. "In other situations it would be better, I think, bitten by a werewolf, glitched onto me, but knowing that the meteor dude was just angry and decided to take it out on us... it just feels nasty."

"Oh..." Pearl looks down at all four off her hands.

Ren picks up on her feelings and starts talking again, "It's hard to deal with, but it gets better... besides who knows what will end up happening with you."

Letting out a shaky breath Pearl nods, "Yeah, who knows."

Ren's ears droop down, "Aw sorry, I don't think I was much help..."

"NO no, you're fine, i want to hear it." She waves her hands, "Tell me, uh, how do you feel about the changed appearance."

Shaking his head Ren brings a hand to his mouth and pokes at his fangs, "Honestly... I don't like it... It's just, not me... It's not my teeth, it's not my ears, sometimes, when it's near the full moon or a shift my eyes turn yellow..." Ren claws at the dirt, leaving deep furrows, "I kinda hate it. The hermits are fine but some other people are always like 'oh you must love being a dog now, hahaha, it's in your name' but i don't, it wasn't my choice..."

Wrapping him in a hug Pearl sighs, "Hopefully this nightmare will end soon."

"Yeah, why did you join us in the first place?"

"Oh, well, Grian and I we go way back, then evo happened and the watchers had to pull him from the world since he would have perma died. I went to legacy. And when I heard about all this," she flaps her new hands around, '' I felt bad for him and I did minigames and helped you guys with building before. So we convinced X to let us join. Seems a bit stupid now." She sighs, laying back and looking up at the stars that are just barely starting to twinkle above them.

______________

Shrugging off her hoodie Pearl shudders, and puffs out an icy breath. It's hot today, it's not too bad because of the ice magic she now has but something about her jacket was annoying her.

Easiest solution for that, ditch the jacket on top of an ender chest.

Smiling to herself she continues working. The build is coming together nicely. Hoping down to the ground she starts detailing the building.

After a few hours of hard work she takes a break to get some water.

Pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders she freezes.

"I put my jacket on my ender chest..."

Looking at the cloak draped around her shoulders she shudders. Bringing a hand to her head she finds the antenna have become the hood again.

Pulling her communicator out she switches it on and looks at her reflection, "Woah..."

Wings.

Huge moth-like wings curled around her body forming some sort of cloak. Tensing the muscles in her back the wings stretch out and ice crystals form to keep them from curling too much.

After a quick call to Keralis she clambors up to the roof of her building and takes a running leap off. She doesn't fly...

But she glides, which is a good start. Much better than some of the other hermits at least.

Notes:

so...
we're almost done.
in the next few weeks I'll be posting the second part of Comfort Is found In Words And Actions. with there hermits who were transformed after the first one.
then it's the ending.

(there are one shots yet to be written and I would like to hear reader input. should I complete the one shots before the ending or should I work on then and post even after the ending, I feel it could make the ending lose some of the punch but want to know what you think.)

let me know what you thought of moon moth pearl. inspiration was drawn from the Ben 10 alien Big Chill.