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Pearl and Gem are laying on the beach, deep in conversation about who is the best sand castle builder.
“I’m just saying, I’m pretty sure I’m better at building castles than you are.” Gem tells her best friend.
“No way,” Pearl argues as she watches Tilly run around in the sand, “I’m obviously the better builder. Have you seen my Minecraft world?”
“No shit, we’re on the same server. I’m still better though.” Gem declares.
Pearl huffs angrily, “Fine, let’s have a sand castle building competition. First one to fall loses.” She offers to Gem.
“You’re on!”
***
“Alright! Listen up!” False shouts as she claps her hands together. Pearl called her so she could proctor the contest. “You have three rules. Rule number one, no knocking someone else’s castle down. Number two, you can only use sand. No metal or wood or concrete. And finally, rule number three, you only get an hour to build your castle.” She explains quickly to the two participants.
“Sounds good.” Pearl responds.
“Got it.” Gem agrees.
“Alright, on the count of three. One, two, three!” False shouts as the two grab the already set out shovels and buckets to start creating their castles.
Pearl begins by smoothing out a flat surface to create with while Gem runs straight to the ocean to collect some water.
Pearl eyes her suspiciously, but then gets back to her work. She works diligently for a solid ten minutes until she has a couple of decently sized towers and a large wall touching each tower. The sandcastle is around two feet tall and three feet wide.
She turns to look at her opponent, expecting her to barely have any progress. Instead, Gem has a castle that is over six feet tall with a moat surrounding it and a drawbridge attached to the wall. ‘Oh shit.’ Pearl thinks. She haselevator inside so she can easily reach both floors.
“What the fuck?!” She throws her hands up in the air in a burst of bewilderment. “False?! Is this even allowed?!”
False turns to Gen and nods. “She didn’t use anything but sand and tools.” Gem whips her head to see the fucking “tools” Pearl used. There is an excavator sitting a few hundred feet away and stacks upon stacks of large, metal buckets.
“Are you mad that I’m winning, Gem?”
“Definitely not! I’m so going to beat your ass. Just you wait.”
Pearl scoffs, turning back to her work, “Okay Gem.”
***
It’s been almost fifty five minutes and False is absolutely baffled at the outcome of this competition.
Both Pearl and Gen have built literal fortresses.
She’s not even exaggerating.
Pearl has built a four story modern mansion with a bowling alley, arcade, infinity pool, and a ten foot statue of Tilly in the middle of a fountain.
Gem, on the other hand, has built a life sized lighthouse with a working light at the top and an insanely large swordfish swimming around it somehow. That’s not even physically possible.
“Five minutes left!” She yells as she checks her watch. “Add your finishing touches!”
Gem and Pearl hurriedly rush to add final decorations to their castles such as: seashells, sea grass, pearls, etc.
As the timer reaches the last ten seconds False sees a ball of white fluff zoom past her, running straight towards the castles. “Tilly no!” False yells, but it’s too late. Tilly runs straight into Pearl’s mansion, tearing right through it. It collapses almost immediately is a cloud of sand.
“HAHA- IT- HAHAHA!!” Gem cackles, pointing at the mound of sand next to her best friend.
Tilly’s ears perk up as she hears the laughter, recognizing it as Gem. She zooms directly towards her and ends up missing Gem, and instead, face plants into the sand lighthouse. Gem just gapes as she stares at her castle, turned directly into a pile of sand.
“Well shit.” False laughs out of surprise. “I guess there is no winner.”
Tilly barks as she stands next to a pile of sand that’s vaguely shaped like a castle. Everyone whips their heads around to see the only remaining castle.
“Well then,” she claps her hands together, “I guess we do have a winner! Everyone give it up for Tilly!
Pearl and Gem just stare dumbly at their dog. Almost speechless. Almost,
“What-“
“The-“
“Fuck!”