Chapter Text
“And that was how we discovered this place,” Rebel finishes, gesturing to the expanse around them. “It took us some time to harness full control of the innerworld, of course. At first, we could only reach it via meditation—and the other Pearls disappeared once the fronting Pearl was no longer present. It was always a long affair to enter and leave it. But we practiced, and it eventually became easier. Now, I could…well, from what I last remember, I could enter the innerworld while also being active externally!”
Keeper looks rather shocked, and the third yet unnamed Pearl leans forward with a glimmer in her eyes. “You’re a good storyteller!” she exclaims, and feels a rush of pride for her other part. Rebel smiles and dips her head humbly.
“I used to love telling Amethyst stories of the war’s happenings,” she says in a low voice. “She adored it, especially in her early years…but lately she’s been rather distant from me.” She takes a long sip of her coffee out of an ornate mug that must have been sitting in the storage area for a century. “How has she been since…since…” She puts a hand to her throat, face scrunching up as if she ate something nasty. “A– apologies. Since Rose’s passing?” Her eyes spark with a new wave of grief, but she squeezes her arm and swallows it.
“Oh, she’s been fine enough. Troublesome occasionally, but she has been good to Steven.” Rebel nods, but she’s not entirely present. She stares at the ground, clearly absorbed in her mourning of Rose. Pearl wants to do something, perhaps to comfort her, but she can’t figure out what to do, so she simply waits for a response.
Eventually, Keeper clears her throat. “Um. Are you quite alright?” She reaches over and touches Rebel’s arm, which makes her startle and shy away from the touch.
“Yes! Sorry, sorry. I’m just stuck in my head, I guess.” Her eyes grow foggy once more, and then she snaps out of it and scratches at her arm, opening a wound. A bead of blood rolls down her arm. “Oh, dear.” A box full of bandages flies over, and Rebel takes one with a grateful nod to Keeper.
For a little while afterwards, they converse about inconsequential things. Most of it is Pearl updating Rebel on what has happened since she was locked away. Things about Steven, Greg (Rebel stiffened at the mention of his name), Garnet and Amethyst. Things about the Crystal Gems as a whole, Steven’s fight to make the Diamonds understand their wrongs, Peridot and Lapis and the Cluster.
“So much has happened with Steven around,” Rebel muses. A photo album lays across her lap, filled to the brim with photos of Steven. The majority of them were taken when he was a young child—Pearl sort of dropped the habit as he grew older, and especially since their combat against Homeworld began again. “Rose would be proud.” That is said as a whisper.
Throughout most of the conversation, Keeper has been quiet. She watches Rebel and Pearl, fetching things for them when necessary, but she says very little herself. In fact, she appears rather detached from everything Pearl is talking about. Not uninterested, but just having no emotional connection to the events, despite the fact she was alive during all of it. Pearl supposes it makes sense. She was alive, but not very involved with anything outside. Still, it rubs Pearl the wrong way for some reason.
“What has your life been like? In here?” Pearl broaches the subject when the conversation falls into a lull. Keeper had been fiddling with the wall ornaments, but then she snaps to attention, confusion flooding her expression.
“Mine?” she repeats, blushing. “Oh, well, not very exciting. I’ve mostly been playing around with these things.” She gestures at the room around them. “Not making mock-ups like this, of course. This was set up for when you visited again. But you know…organizing and re-organizing our collections of swords and human artifacts and such, and experimenting with methods of cataloguing. That’s most of what I do.” She taps her chin. “In fact, once you’re done here—and this isn’t said to rush you, of course!—but once you both leave, I was in the middle of a project. I was organizing all of our human-made writings by length…quite a daunting task.” She smiles apologetically.
Rebel bites her lip, worry clouding her expression. “You know I can’t leave here, right?”
“You can’t?” The unnamed Pearl interjects before Keeper can reply. “What about those private spaces you mentioned? The places that work like memory bubbles?”
“I need a specific door to enter it! Sort of…think of it like a portal. Before the reset, we had a huge communal space—that was here, this area. That took months to create and learn to maintain. It took us years to discover the ability to create the ‘bubbles’, which turned into our private rooms. The process would surely be quicker now, what with my knowledge of the function. But it would still take very long to make a satisfactory ‘base’ room—where we would make the doors from. Without it…” She let the sentence trail off: without it, she would be stuck here.
Keeper’s face sours, but she sighs and reluctantly concedes, “Okay. You can stay with me for a little while to build the base. I don’t think I want to bring anybody else until it’s built, though.”
“Why don’t you want anybody else here? The work would go quicker,” Rebel argues, beginning to look frustrated. “I’ve noticed ever since I arrived, you don’t seem to enjoy my presence! Or anyone’s presence! Why is that?” Before Keeper gets a chance to respond, Rebel continues, “No, I understand where you’re coming from. I used to feel the same way. But everyone else will have to be restored eventually, and we won’t be shut up in our rooms all the time! You will have to get used to company.” She stops and looks thoughtful. After a beat of hesitation, Keeper almost speaks again, but Rebel steamrolls over her, making Keeper flinch. “You know, by the time me and Pink’s servant met, it wasn’t just us. We didn’t recognize it at the time, but there were around half a dozen facets, all disguised as either me or the other one. I understand your fear. I know what you’re experiencing. But there’s no other way than through.”
After that, she finally stops talking. Keeper looks uncomfortable, her eyes panicked and shocked, and she picks at her nails. After too long sitting in silence, Keeper says, “Okay. We can bring in a few more. Slowly, though.” Rebel looks satisfied with that.
“How would we build the base room?” Pearl cuts in, and only after Rebel glances at her with surprise does she realize that she won’t be involved in the construction. She handles outside business, and won’t be in here for much longer. She feels a pang of grief: yet another thing she’s missing out on. “I mean, how would you build it? Our storage doesn’t have the tools to build something.”
“Storage?” Rebel asks, raising an eyebrow. “Of course not. We won’t be relying on storage. We’ll use our imagination.”
Keeper and Pearl exchange a look of confusion. “You’re saying…” Keeper starts, “we can make things out of thin air?” Her voice loses its typical restraint and her eyes alight with excitement: Pearl realizes she’s never seen Keeper excited before. “How is that possible? The rules of physics–”
“Physics? Who says those have to apply?” Rebel asks, clearly enjoying the aghastness in both the other Pearls’ expression. She laughs. “This place—I don’t know what it is, but it almost seems like if the imagination was physically accessible. We can float, we can create something out of nothing, we can teleport, but that last one can get dizzying.” She stands, extending her arms out in a flourish. “It’s not even hard. See?” Suddenly, the room they’d been sitting in is enclosed in two blank tan walls, matching the tone of the walls already present. The room is flooded into darkness with no more access to the white landscape, and Keeper lets out a squeal of alarm.
For a heartbeat, Keeper and Pearl are stunned into silence. Pearl can barely see the two others, only their vague outline. Rebel chuckles. “I’m sorry. One of the others…they like doing that to new Pearls, and since she isn’t here, it was my responsibility.” The new walls fade away, leaving them in brightness again. Wonder fills Keeper’s expression, but Pearl only feels shock. Rebel looks mournful, eyes cloudy as if remembering her lost friend.
“If it’s so easy, why will it take so long?” Keeper asks, brimming with joy. Something seems to have clicked in her, eyes flitting around as if suddenly seeing beauty in this emptiness. Or maybe she’s seeing potential.
“Did you see what I made? The walls were entirely blank, except for color.” Rebel smiles, her eyes sparkling, reflecting Keeper’s excitement. “It wasn’t detailed. It looks simple to make a blank wall, but it takes a lot more effort to construct more intricate things. Also…it took me some practice to learn how to create walls on will. They have dimensions, you know. Width and height—you don’t master that creation immediately.” Keeper nods, gaze shifting to nearby objects as if imagining how much effort they would each take.
They are both standing up now, talking animatedly about innerworld creation. The third Pearl sits on the side, content to simply watch them. Her life has been too exciting lately; watching one of her facets talk about something she’s interested in relaxes Pearl. It fills her with warmth, too; she may not have been around for the first time they discovered these inner workings, but she can be here now. Her and Keeper can learn about it all together. She’s not alone.
Keeper creates a cup, small and black: fit for a morning cup of tea. Her eyebrows pull together and a white rim appears. A small purple flower etches itself onto the side of the cup. She lets out a breath and seems to glow with pride at her creation. “I’ll use it every day,” Keeper promises, holding the cup to her chest.
“Make sure not to forget it exists,” Rebel cautions. “Things can disappear just as easy as they can appear. Especially at the beginning, objects are very reliant on your imagination. And of course, you can’t take things created internally into the outside world. That would defy physics! We should keep all of the real objects somewhere specific, so we know it’s not an internal figment. That’s what we did before the reset.”
“Of course. I guess I’ll work on this skill after you leave,” Keeper says, turning to Pearl at the final moment. Pearl nods, a knot of guilt forming in her chest. She’s going to miss Keeper building her skills. But that’s okay. She can deal with that—it won’t be long. “It wouldn’t be polite to ignore you for much longer.” Keeper chuckles, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Oh, no, I was enjoying listening to you!” Pearl insists. “This might feel silly, but I’m glad to learn about these things with someone. I would feel so lonely if you weren’t here too.” Keeper seems surprised, her smile growing a little wider.
“I’m glad you’re here too.”
Keeper sits beside Pearl on the couch, small objects appearing in her hands: a picture frame, a plate, a vase. Pearl tries to create something too, and ends up with a yellow flower in her hand. “Is it alive?” she asks, glancing at Rebel who is watching them intently a little ways away.
“No. You can’t create full-grown living things. You could create some seeds and grow them, though. But the flowers would be just as susceptible to disappearing as the seeds: it’s all fake.” Pearl is frustrated at that. It would be so convenient to start a garden in here. She’s always wanted to start one at Steven’s home, but it’s Steven’s home, and she never felt comfortable making it her own as well. Maybe she will have to.
After Keeper and Pearl seem content with their ability, Rebel approaches them. “Hey…I think we got off-topic at some point,” she says, looking disconcerted. “We were talking about Homeworld, a while ago. You wanted…advice to handling it?”
Pearl startles, her mood dropping immediately. “Right! Oh no, I’ve left Steven and everyone else back there! I need to go back.” She closes her eyes, silently scolding herself for forgetting about them. In such a dangerous location! Who knows what the Diamonds have done to Steven, what they have told them? And what about the others! Garnet and Amethyst are in no less danger. Pearl is the only one who can at least appear acceptable—she should be there protecting her friends!
Rebel puts her hand on Pearl’s shoulder. “Wait. I kind of…I mean, well, I’d be better at behaving correctly there.” She pauses. Pearl frowns. Then Rebel blurts out, “I want to front while we’re on Homeworld. Can I?”
Did she hear Rebel right? Pearl stutters, eventually coming up with: “Why?”
“I think it could help bring back my friend from her bubble,” Rebel says, her voice suddenly flooded with grief. She collects herself, sighing and standing up straighter, her hand falling off of Pearl’s shoulder. “I think the familiar environment could pull her out of her bubble. If I try to call to her mentally, and occupy a position she is accustomed to…Pink Diamond’s pearl, that is…it could help. It’s just a theory, but talking about Pink Diamond used to pull her from her room and into the communal space. This might be similar enough to work.”
“Wouldn’t that happen if I was at ‘front’ too?” Pearl asks, but her chest loosens a bit at the idea of staying inside. At the same time, she’s never experienced anybody else fronting. Will she be comfortable with letting somebody else take control?
Rebel’s face screws up. “Maybe. But sometimes, when someone you love is fronting, you know instinctively and enter the communal area to speak to them…” She trails off, leaving her obvious hope in the air: the servant loves her enough to overcome her bubble comatose. “It might not work,” she says, voice shaking subtly. “But it might, so I want to try.” Keeper catches Pearl’s eye, silently asking her to accept Rebel’s offer.
But Pearl isn’t cruel. She would have said yes anyway. “Of course you can. How do we swap control?” Rebel’s eyes light up with hope.
“It’s not difficult.” She steps a pace away from Pearl, looking out in the distance at nothing. “For some time, we had a control panel. All we had to do was press a button. But obviously that won’t work—which is just fine, because I’ve never needed it. It was a courtesy for the newer Pearls.” She cracks her knuckles and stretches as if about to engage in combat, and Pearl begins to feel nervous. Rebel catches the look on her face. “Don’t mind me. I’m just eager.” She shakes her hands out as if expelling energy and then turns to Pearl. “Sit down with your legs crossed. We’ll do this the old-fashioned way, for your sake.”
Pearl obeys, and Rebel mirrors her about a foot away. “This involves a lot of visualization. The innerworld is very abstract in that manner. It’s all visualizing and imagining and pretending. But it works, somehow. Close your eyes.
“…Good. Now, imagine your body as if it was hollow…completely empty, like a container. Think about your Gem as your energy. What color is it? The first color that comes to mind, no thought put into it.”
“Green, sort of.”
“Green. That’s pretty uncommon for us. Mine is pink. Pink—for Pink Diamond’s blood, that I spilled.”
“A bit morbid,” Keeper adds. Pearl stiffens. She had nearly forgotten Keeper was there.
“Please don’t interrupt.”
“Oh! Sorry.”
“No, no worries. I just need her to focus. So, green…imagine your body full of your energy, green. It comes from your gem, shining bright, but it fills your entire body. Are you imagining it?”
“Yes.”
“Is it vivid?”
“Yes.” Her voice has an edge to it. She’s beginning to feel a tad impatient.
“Okay, okay! Now imagine that green fading. Your gem stops shining, becoming pearlescent, the way it truly looks. But that means that you—we—are empty. It represents a lack of personhood. Give it a second. Let it rest, entirely empty. … Now imagine that pink light begins to fill that space. It’s light pink, think Pink Diamond’s hair. Do you know what her hair looks like?”
“We share memories.”
“Right. Sorry, I forgot. Well, the new energy that’s filling our body, it’s pink like her hair. It emanates from our gem, which is glowing a similar pink tone. Does it feel unfamiliar? Does it feel like somebody else’s aura, for lack of a better term?”
“I guess so.”
“Okay! You can open your eyes now. It’s complete.”
Pearl’s eyes flutter open, met with blinding light that gives her a headache. When she adjusts, she sees…Rebel, sitting there and looking at her expectantly. “What did that do?” she asks, irritation making her skin itch. Rebel stands up.
“What did I say it would do? It has given me control of our body. I’ll leave now, if you have nothing else to me. But you might still hear my voice, if I decide to talk to you. It will sound like it’s coming from everywhere at once, and at the same time, only in your mind. It’ll feel pretty odd at first.”
Keeper speaks up, “I know that feeling. It was the same whenever you spoke to me, when you were outside.” She directs the comment at the third Pearl.
“It was that easy? I’m not in control anymore, really?” Rebel nods, chipper as ever. It really only annoys Pearl more. She tries to leave the innerworld the way she did last time, taking her focus away from the current environment and visualizing the way the real world looked when she left. It doesn’t work, though. There’s no strict barrier she runs into, she just…doesn’t leave. Nothing happens.
She really can’t get out.
A wave of dizziness washes over her and she stumbles back onto the couch, her throat tightening. She feels trapped, sides of a box pressing against her arms and making her shake and her knees curl up towards her chest. Keeper rushes to her side, asking, “Are you okay? Breathe, come on, focus on my voice…” Pearl screws her eyes shut and lets Keeper’s voice wash over her racing thoughts.
When Pearl recovers enough to pull her knees away from her chest and look up, Rebel is standing with her arms crossed, seeming bored. “Done yet?” she asks, but her tone is softer than her words. “It’s okay. You’re not dying, and we can swap back at any time. In fact, we could do it right now. We could use a quicker method, too, I just thought that one would be easier for you. Sometimes pearls get stuck sort of…in-between. It’s not pleasant.”
Pearl shakes her head. “I think I’m fine. I just didn’t expect to feel so trapped.” Her hands rest on her knees, still trembling. “This place is real, right? Even though we can make things appear and it’s ‘abstract’, as you said, it’s still real?” Is she still real now that she isn’t in control?
Rebel shrugs. “We’re experiencing it, aren’t we?”
Pearl doesn’t have a response for that. It’s hard to reason with herself: real is definable, it’s logical, it makes sense. None of this makes sense! But she is experiencing it, Rebel’s not wrong. She feels real. Does that mean she is?
“We’re not always going to have the answers we want.” Pearl feels the weight of a person sit on the cushion beside her. “We tried to figure out this phenomenon for years. There’s no answer to ‘why’ or ‘how’. I think we could only get an answer from other Gems…there’s no answer inside of us. Not from me, not from anyone.” Pearl glances up to see Rebel staring into space, troubled. “Good thing we’re on Homeworld now, right?” she says with a wry grin, but her eyes shine with worry. “Maybe we’ll find an answer.” But probably not.
After a minute, Rebel stands up. “That’s it, then. I’ll leave now. I’ll need your help to talk to Steven,” she says, flicking her hand toward Pearl but not looking in her direction. “I have our memories, but I don’t know him personally very well. I’ll grant you awareness of the outside world.”
“You can do that?” Pearl mumbles, not really expecting an answer.
“It’s a skill,” is all Rebel replies.
She walks away from the mock-up room and into the white abyss, and once she’s a good distance away, she simply disappears. Pops out of existence—not even a fade-out. It kind of startles Pearl. She laughs.
Keeper appears in the corner of her vision. “So, now that she’s gone, do you want to build with me? It takes more effort than I thought it would to create correctly-sized objects–” she glances at a misformed vase, way too large for the room they’re in, “so we’ll practice for a bit before we start with walls.” The vase disappears in a similar fashion to Rebel, gone in a split second, and Keeper sits down where it stood a second ago. She pats the floor beside her.
Pearl’s chest fills with warmth as she sits beside Keeper. She won’t miss Keeper’s building. She won’t miss bringing in old facets, or the slow recovery of their innerworld. She’ll miss Steven and Garnet and Amethyst, of course…but she thinks she’ll like this break.