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(The weak must be purged, she cries, feet planted in a graveyard. In a cradle. In the ruins of her colony – her promised land. In a hell. Ramrod spine, and pride lining the curve of her shoulders. Weighing heavy.
And she won’t break under it.
She won't. She won't. She won't)
There is this world that believes in greatness.
A greatness that is born in you. A worth built into your cut, in the carve of that crystal that makes you who you are. (In your tensile strength, Jasper. How much can you take before you crack?)
Jasper carries greatness in sharp edges and stiff shoulders. She believes you carry it in the curve of your spine, what the world makes you, so you are. She believes in the cut of her crystal, the sweat on her brow, the wound you leave in the stone you are born from.
She believes, and she believes. When the runt of an Amethyst stands in front of her, she believes. When she finally finds Rose Quartz and she is warped and small and human, she believes. When these traitorous gems keep fusing like it isn’t something shameful, she believes.
Pathetic, she whispers. And believes it.
She is not born. She is made.
(made perfect, she whispers. They whisper about her – the stories, the legends, the aristocratic gems of a Diamond’s court who views her with curiosity. The perfect soldier, they whisper and walk around her in great circles. Revering. They say you popped out of the ground with your helmet on, they say you took down eighty crystal gems before the sun went down, they say you were great, they say you were perfect. The perfect soldier, the perfect--)
She is made.
In brittle sandstone, rust red and crumbling in this planet’s heat. She claws her way up and out, with a power that makes the earth into fire underneath her fingers. Into gleaming glass in desert sun. She is made straight-spined and proud. She is made to be admired. She is made rippling with admiration for a gem she will never meet, belly curling with a grief that doesn't subside.
She is made a soldier.
The weak must be purged, she hisses. Alone here, in her motherland. In a paradise that became an ugly ruin before she was even born into it. This is a warzone. This is a prison. This corrupting, corrupted place is enemy territory. But what does that matter? She is made for fighting, isn’t she?
They send her back there - to earth. Back to the beginnings, back to the hell that has haunted her since she broke free of the earth’s crust and felt the death of her Diamond claw at her very soul. Jasper watches as her ship closes in on earth, and she feels it bubbling inside of her, This is her origin. Her purpose, coming back here and ending this. This is the wound that does not heal, this is the bitter hate that bubbles in her chest, the crushing weight she carries.
This planet is her pride, Jasper the great and powerful soldier amidst failure. And it is her shame, Jasper, Quartz soldier of earth. Of earth.
She is sent back here, and Rose Quartz is small and warped and her army is all but lost and there is fusion. Always fusion.
This planet destroys everything.
Pathetic, she whispers, this earthling gem, returning to her place of making. The word spreads on her tongue like a venom. And she wants to spit.
This planet had brought her life, once. And it had brought her death and heartbreak – loss and anger. Five thousand years later, their ship goes down and Jasper is on her hands and knees in enemy territory again, she is losing in enemy territory again. They had lost the last time too. Evacuated in terror, in shame.
Earth had always brought her this; this loss and shame –
and it had brought her desperation; crawling out of the ruins of a crashed ship - enemies in front of her, a grip around Lapis' arm - offering revenge, Lapis extending her hand towards her - a chance for victory --
chains,
Malachite.
(Pathetic, she whispers. And believes it.)
They had called her the perfect soldier, admired her power. Then, in the smouldering ruins of her ship, she had taken Lapis' hand, and they had been something else entirely.
Molten lava and panzer ice and the crushing weight of the ocean bearing down on a monstrous being. She is the prisons they make for themselves. Anger and desperation and cold, a cold hatred that they both know so well. She is darkness and chains around her wrists and drowning and drowning and drowning.
Malachite is power. She is a prison.
She is power.
For a year they breathe nothing but each other, and Jasper feels the weight of Lapis’ thousand years in the mirror in every tightening of the chains around her wrists. She feels the deep, desperate feeling of being trapped, the anger building building building.
And maybe Lapis breathes her in a little too; thousands of years on a battlefield fighting a war already lost. Endless fighting on a warfront, a breathless evacuation and only a fraction getting out in time. Watching as the Great Diamond Authority removed the pink diamond from their symbols, as the Diamond in whose name they had fought for centuries became mentioned only in hushed whispers. being recommisioned, wearing another Diamond's symbol on her chest and feeling wrong.
(Homeworld never spoke of the loss on earth when they got back after the evacuation. They never spoke of the thousands of soldiers that were recommisioned, sent off into obscurity because there was no room for them on Homeworld - no room for them in peacetime. Jasper wore Yellow Diamond's symbol on her chest, wore the war on her shoulders like a burden, wore the whispers of civillian gems - the admoration of soldiers like a badge of honour. She had made it out of there. She had been better than that place.
When she comes back, the ones left behind are huge and warped and monsterous. They had been quartz gems like her once. Large and strong and made for war. Homeworld never spoke of them either - the thousands upon thousands of gems that hadn't gotten out. They had been weak. They should not be mourned.
Maybe she had fought with them on the warfront once, side by side against hundreds of enemies. Or maybe she had fought against them?
She watches the monsterous beings that had once been like her.
Pathetic, she whispers, and believes it.)
She takes Lapis' hand in the smoking ruins of a downed ship. For a year she is trapped under the crushing weight of earth's ocean. For a year she is drowning, cold water chains curling around her wrists and dragging her down to the deep dark. For a year she is drowning in Lapis' power that crushes down on her like the weight of the entire ocean. (Malachite is a prison because this is what they carry into her; they have made their own chains. Jasper’s wrists are rubbed raw, and the darkness of the deep leaves her shaking. Yet she closes her eyes and drinks in the power she feels. She is made for fighting, this monsterous, suffocating being. She is heavy and warped and unstable.
But what does that matter? There is power here.)
When she finally gains control. She has already gone mad with it.
(Earth is a prison, she hisses to Rose Quartz and the Amethyst runt and Peridot sometime later. On her hands and knees in enemy territory, corruption raging in her system. Having lost. Having lost everything.
I am better than this place, she hisses.
I am better.)
Here is she, in her motherland. The only one to come out right. The only good thing to come out of the failure of earth – or so they said.
And consider this; Jasper builds on it. Shapes herself on their praises. She shapes herself to be the greatest among soldiers, because what else could she be? In this world that drinks in her greatness, but doesn’t really have a place for her aside escort missions to keep her out of sight?
Once they had called her the best thing to come out of the failure on earth. They called her the perfect soldier, told stories about her battles with awe in their voices, they called her strong, they called her great.
But Jasper wakes up without the ocean’s weight crushing down on Malachite, and never once has she felt so weak.
(She begs to be taken back – to drink this power again. She will endure the suffocating weight of the ocean for a chance to touch the skies a second time. To be strong a second time. So she begs. on her knees in front of Lapis. Inadequate in her own body. Small and weak and grounded, like she has never been before.
It wasn’t healthy! Lapis yells. She has raindrops in her hair, no anger in the set of her shoulders. She turns her away. Turns to Rose Quartz like so many others. We weren’t good for each other.
How can that be? she whispers with desperation lining her tongue. This wartime gem. This prideful soldier. When with you, I was better at the only thing I was ever any good at?)
Consider this; Jasper is standing in a graveyard. She is standing in her birthplace, in the heart of her motherland, but she is standing in a graveyard too.
Because this is Earth, this is her bitter, miserable origin. This empty shell of a planet. And Earth corrupts. Thousands of years ago, in this crumbling ruin, they had all come out wrong. Her sisters, or at least they should have been. Her comrades. Her equals. But in this porous sandstone cradle, they came out small and weak and failed. Stained two-toned like she was, but warped. Small. Sideways.
And here is she. Milennias later. Her kindergarten rust red and sweltering and abandoned and the same as it had been back then. Somewhere else, Pink Diamond’s palanquin is overgrown and abandoned as if it hadn’t been touched once by the greatest of creatures.
Here is she, carrying the symbol of another diamond. The Alpha kindergarteners had been tucked away and forgotten along with the rest of her Beta sister. But Yellow had looked at her and said there may be use for you still.
Here is she, carrying the anger that has been building in her since the beginning. Coming back to earth to finish it all.
She is made for fighting, after all.
These were soldiers who were made to be deadless. Who should have been deadless. They had died regardless.
Death doesn’t care about what they are made to be. Because this had been war, these had been sisters on a battlefield, sisters over a thousand years. They had been made for fighting, all of them. Death doesn’t care that you are meant to be deadless. On the battlefield, it takes and takes and takes.
And all that remains is her. Jasper stands ramrod straight in the heart of her motherland. She had been enough back then, but suddenly inadequate after Lazuli. Waking up without the ocean’s weight on her spine and feeling too small in all this. She had been enough back then, but now she is alone. Her sisters dead and gone. Her rank insignificant here.
She builds an army. Collects creatures that should have been her sisters, corrupted into something hideous on this terrible planet. This planet that destroys everything.She seeks comrades, tames them, teaches them to follow orders, to attack on cue, to fuse. Because Lazuli turns her away, and she is too small and too weak without the maddening strength that had been Malachite.
All that remains is her. Jasper survives. She goes mad with it. Those two are not mutually exclusive. All that remains is her,alone in enemy territory, building an army. Bitter and tired and hellbent on ending this. She is made for fighting. And she will fight. She will, she will, she will fight.
All that remains is her. Ramrod spine and feet firmly planted in this crumbling ruin of a warzone. Half mad with revenge – with desperation – caught in a war that has been over for thousands of years, but never, ever to her.
She is made for fighting this war. She is made for fighting. She is made for fighting. She is made--
She remains. With corruption bubbling in her system and these creatures in front of her that look at her with pity – with Rose Quartz who is not Rose Quartz begging her to let herself be healed.All that remains is her, on her knees in a warzone. Losing it all, Having lost it all, long ago.
Jasper is standing in a graveyard.
The weak must be purged, she spits. Because they were. They had been.
And here, where everything began, she is too.