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The Crystal Gems were out on a mission, so Steven decided to take a walk along the beach. It was a newer hobby for him – usually he would go into town, but right now, he really just felt like walking along the seaside. Not far into his trek though, he came across some unexpected company.
“Lapis!”
The blue Gem turned toward the noise almost instantly, surprise written all over her face.
“Steven!”
“What are you doing here?”
Lapis looked away, shifting her gaze back to the ocean and sighing softly in response. Steven wasn’t sure what exactly this meant, so he waited a little while longer for a clearer answer.
“I don’t know I just…I guess I wanted to look at the ocean.”
“Oh? Is that all? Haha, I love doing that. Can I join you?” He was a bit relieved honestly; usually with Lapis, it was something bad.
“Sure.”
Together, they sat on the beach, watching the waves lap up against the shoreline. Steven was enjoying himself well enough, but when he looked over at Lapis, he noticed she was frowning.
“Lapis…?”
“Huh?!”
Steven hadn’t meant to startle her so much – what had she been thinking about?
“Oh…sorry. I was just…thinking.”
“About what?”
“……”
Steven stared at her a moment longer before following her gaze, which had shifted back to the sea again. It was such a beautiful day; the sky was clear, the ocean was glistening, what could possibly make her feel so down while looking at the ocean? Unless….
“Are you thinking about Jasper?”
Lapis cringed, making Steven worry for a moment that he’d got it wrong.
“Yea” she replied after a moment, much to Steven’s relief. “I dunno, I guess I just wish I could look at this planet’s ocean and get some sort of joy from it like you do. Every time I see it though, all I can think about is…”
It was true, Lapis had mostly had bad experiences with the ocean, even outside of Malachite. Right after she was released from the mirror, she tried to use the ocean to get home, but in the end, that didn’t work out. It was only after healing her gem that Lapis was able to fly back to Homeworld at all…and that didn’t really work out either. It was no wonder the ocean caused her so much stress.
“Well, maybe you need to create some new memories then!”
“Huh?”
“If all you can think about when you look at the ocean is bad stuff, maybe you just don’t have good things to think about yet.”
“What kind of good things?”
At this point, Steven was grinning from ear to ear, stunned that he hadn’t thought of this earlier.
“I can show you! We’ve always been beach summer fun buddies, but we’ve never actually had a beach day!”
“What’s…a beach day?”
Since it was still early in the day, Steven decided to launch their first beach day right then and there, explaining that it was a day where you had fun at the beach. Lapis seemed skeptical, but Steven assured her that there were all sorts of things to do that she would enjoy. After taking a moment to think, he decided to start with sea-shell collecting.
“Pearl really likes doing this with me, because she doesn’t have to get really wet, and she can organize them afterwards by color and shape.” Steven paused, spotting a peach-colored shell partially obscured by the sand.
“Oh! There’s a good one!” Steven plucked the shell from the sand, and then dipped it in the water of the incoming tide to rinse it off. Once it was clean, Steven held it over for Lapis to see.
“Isn’t it pretty?”
Lapis inspected it, taking the shell from Steven and turning it over in her hands a few times. “I guess…” she agreed, staring at it a moment before looking back at him uncertainly.
“So we just…keep it?”
“Yeah! We can collect a whole bucket full, and keep it in my room. Ooorr we can decorate stuff with them!” To Steven’s dismay, Lapis seemed less than encouraged by this.
“Don’t the shells mind that they’re being collected like that? What if they miss their home?”
“Wha? No no, they aren’t alive! They don’t care if we take them!”
“How do you know how they feel?!”
Steven’s smile faded, finally realizing what she was getting at. It hadn’t been his intention to remind her of her time inside the mirror, that was the exact opposite of what this was supposed to do!
“Ay caramba…” he muttered, dropping the shell back in the sand. This wasn’t going well at all! He had to step up his game.
“Let’s try something else. Lemme just go get something real quick.”
This time, Steven decided to go right into the ocean, because Lapis wouldn’t care if she got a little wet, right? After changing into his suit and grabbing a body board, Steven led Lapis out into the ocean. While the blue Gem did seem a little uncomfortable at first with being in the water, she still waded out with Steven without protest.
“OK” he said, facing toward the shore again. “This is another thing humans do for fun at the beach. We ride the waves!” As if on cue, a wave drew near, and Steven readied himself to take it in. Lapis watched closely as Steven and his board drifted up and over the passing tide.
“….I don’t get it.”
“That’s…ah, thats not what was supposed to happen. Hang on, I’ll get this one for sure!”
Despite his reassurance, the same thing repeated a few more times. Lapis. Soon, Steven began to get visibly frustrated. “Ugh, the waves are too small, I can’t show you how to ride them like this!”
“Wait, you just need bigger waves?”
“Yeah.”
Lapis turned toward the next potential wave, which at the moment was promising to drift past just like all the others. The surf was overall just pretty calm now, so it didn’t look like Steven would get the waves he wanted any time soon.
But she could change that.
Raising her arms up, Lapis urged the water upward, creating a slightly larger, slightly more powerful wave. Steven caught on to what she was doing just in time to turn around and ride the wave in all the way to shore.
“Woooo!!!”
When Steven turned back, he saw Lapis smiling, and eagerly hurried back out to meet her.
“That was awesome! Can you do that again?”
“Eh he, sure, why not?”
After another successful ride, Steven invited Lapis to take a turn on the board. She repeated Steven’s form as best she could, and in the end, she rode the wave into shore successfully.
“That was great!” Lapis exclaimed after joining Steven out in the surf again. “But I think I can make my own board for the next ride.” To illustrate this, Lapis conjured up a sheet of ice shaped just like Steven’s body board.
“Isn’t that cold?”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
Satisfied, Steven let out a gleeful laugh and took his own board back. Sure enough, Lapis rode in with him perfectly, even if she was on a slap of ice.
“Can you make it even bigger this time?” he asked once they returned to the ocean again. “And maybe…a little faster!”
Lapis nodded, focusing her energy on the water and forcibly moving it up and over toward Steven. The boy caught the wave perfectly, crying out in delight as he zoomed toward shore. It was only once looking back that his smile faltered. She was still out in the ocean, and her board was gone.
“Awww, you didn’t get that one!”
“That’s OK!” Lapis yelled back, even as Steven was swimming back out to her. “I can just watch you for now.” That sounded boring to Steven, but Lapis finally looked like she was having fun, so he decided to go with it.
“Ha-ha, okaaay.” Steven got into position. “Alright, I’m ready! Let’s go for the biggest one yet!” Lapis smiled and nodded, forming the wave and guiding it towards shore just as before, but with a bit more strength this time. Steven was delighted with the results, and told her as much when he returned out to sea.
“Bigger!” he cheered the moment he got swam out again. “That one was almost like flying!”
At this point, Lapis was grinning almost as much as Steven, eager to try and make a wave that would make him feel like he was actually flying. Once the boy got into position, Lapis turned her full attention to the waves, and lifted both arms up.
Bigger.
Faster.
Stronger.
Steven wasn’t entirely sure why he looked back this time, but as he waited for the next wave to come, he suddenly had the feeling that something was amiss. Sure enough, when he peeked behind him, he saw a much larger wall of water coming at him fast.
“Uh-oh…”
Before he could say anything else, the wave hit, the force of it sending Steven off his board completely and into the water below. Lapis turned around just in time to see him go under, and instantly, she began to panic.
“Steven!”
He wasn’t coming up. Immediately, Lapis’ wings shot out of her Gem, and she soared over to the last place she saw him, frantically calling out her friend’s name.
“STEVEN!”
She saw his board surface, but Steven himself was still nowhere to be found. While it was probably only a minute at most that passed as she continued to scour the surf, to Lapis, it felt like ages. But finally, finally, she heard a familiar laugh at shore.
“Ah ha ha…woooahhh…”
Lapis zoomed over to his side. At first glance, Steven looked dazed, a bit dirty, but otherwise unharmed. That did little to quell her own anxiety though.
“Steven, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to –”
“Lapis!”
Steven’s cry of alarm silenced her, and she looked over to see a very concerned expression from the smaller boy.
“Lapis, I’m fine, see? I just wiped out!”
“You what?!!”
“Wiped out! Like you know, when you fall off your board, and get carried in under the water.”
“Then why are you covered in sand?”
“Well the current was pretty strong, so I was dragged along the bottom a bit. It’s fine though! I just have some sand on me!” He paused, spitting out a bit as well. “Ah-ha, and in my mouth. And actually there’s some in my –” He frowned, glancing down at his swim shorts and deciding not to continue on that train of thought.
“Uh, well anyway!” he continued, quickly smiling up at her again. “I’m not hurt, honest!”
At first, Lapis seemed to relax, letting out a sigh of relief and wrapping her arms around herself. But her smile didn’t return like Steven’s did. Instead, the ocean Gem turned around, walking away from the shoreline and sitting down well out of the tide’s reach.
“Lapis…?”
“This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have gone in the water like that, I almost…..” Running a hand down her face, Lapis’ whole form seemed to wilt.
“Nothing’s changed. I can’t go back in the ocean yet.”
Steven walked over to sit beside Lapis, quietly at first. Why wasn’t this working? He’d tried so hard to show Lapis that the ocean could be fun, but all he’d done was make it worse! Maybe this beach day just wasn’t meant to be?
No.
“Then we don’t need to go back to the ocean.”
“I’m sorry Steven, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know you wanted to have a fun time but…”
“We still can!”
“Huh?”
“What if we tried something that didn’t involve the ocean, if you aren’t ready yet?”
“But then doesn’t that defeat the purpose of this?”
“Well maybe but…at least we’ll still have fun, right?” They both exchanged a smile. Even if they didn’t make progress towards Lapis’ goal of getting more comfortable with the ocean, that didn’t mean the whole day was a failure. Not if he had anything to say about it.
For the rest of the day, Steven and Lapis spent their time strictly on the shore. Steven showed Lapis how to carve and shape wet sand with her hands, and how to dig a moat to keep their newly crafted kingdom safe.
“But who lives in the kingdom?” she asked at one point, stumping Steven for only a moment until he spotted a potential candidate. Cautiously, Steven picked up the crab and gently placed him in the citadel. Following his example, Lapis retrieved another crab, and placed it in there too. Lapis was content with their new subjects until she noticed the tide creeping closer and closer.
“Oh no…”
“What?”
“This house….this castle….it’s not going to be here tomorrow.” Despite her clear anxiety over this revelation, Steven’s smile did not falter.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You do?!”
“Sand castles only last a day or so, two at most. They aren’t meant to be here forever.”
“So what’s the point then?? If you do all that work and have nothing to show for it –”
“But we will have something!”
“What?”
Steven reached out to take Lapis’s hand, and pointed out to where the sky met the sea. They’d been out so long now that the sun was starting to set, covering the sky in brilliant pinks and yellows.
“We have that.”
Lapis didn’t respond, but she didn’t let go of Steven's’ hand either. Instead, the blue Gem gazed out on the waves, observing the colors and how they played off the water. Peridot and her had seen sunsets before at the barn, but this was something all it’s own. Maybe she didn’t need something to show for it after all – the memories were enough.
At last, Lapis smiled.