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- I’ve never seen snow in person before, until now, what is this white stuff falling from the sky? Why are you laughing at me?
Pearl made so many – too many – promises that she would never be able to keep.
She’d promised never to let harm befall her Diamond and to follow Rose Quartz to the ends of the Earth, literally.
She had promised to never look back.
Now, her Diamond was stuck in a human baby, who she could neither tolerate to be around nor particularly wanted to see, and all she could stand to do was live in her memories.
Broken promises were as familiar to her as the cracks in the sidewalks she watched the humans walk upon, stretching the length of the boardwalk. They fractured, sort of beautiful in their randomness, fissures to be filled by nettling weeds that would eventually become dandelions in the summertime, or further exacerbated by frozen water in the colder months.
But they were cracks, nonetheless. Mistakes in the smooth planes, insults to the essential form.
One day, when she was sitting in the sand outside the Temple, a child’s voice caught her attention. It wasn’t – it wasn’t Steven, Rose’s baby, Greg’s son. He wasn’t old enough to speak yet anyways, only emitting little babbles of noises and plenty of cries, no meaningful grasp of language available to his undeveloped brain. Even so, in the past ten months, all human children made her recoil. They were so tiny and fragile and she could snap Steven in half without even trying, without even thinking about it.
Pearl was used to feeling like a renegade, in control of her destiny and with the power to change the course of history. She was used to breaking rules, not people, and she didn’t trust herself around him –not after nearly ripping Rose’s gemstone right from his tiny body last winter. Pearl could kill him without batting an eye, without meaning to, and that scared her.
Being a renegade had made her feel dangerous. This, too, made her feel dangerous, but this wasn't the same.
Anyway. It was summer when she heard the child rattle on an adage, her parent or guardian stumbling after the little girl as she hopped over a mess of dilapidated pavement down the road.
“Step on a crack and you’ll break your Mother’s back!”
The girl continued to repeat the tune, with probably-said Mother cagily following her.
Pearl crooked a smile. A funny concept, wasn’t it? An axiom of bad luck? Or simple human superstition? She wasn’t sure, but then, Pearl wasn’t sure of much anymore.
Whatever the case, perhaps it was simple word association, perhaps it was her turning continually inward in search of comfort in her memories, she was reminded of a specific series of cracks, a tragically beautiful pattern in the face of a smooth, teardrop gemstone – before her consciousness had much say in the matter, she was pulling a mirror out of her gem, turning it over in favor of her own haggard reflection.
It’s been so long…
Another promise, this one she’d made to herself: don’t associate it with a gem. It’s not a person. It’s not a person. It’s not a gem.
Another promise, broken.
The thought of keeping a cracked gem, locked away inside of her own gemstone, unbubbled, made her incredibly uncomfortable. Pearl really couldn’t tell why she hadn’t just bubbled it and sent it to the Temple when she found it, all those years ago at the Galaxy Warp, only that for some reason – for some reason that felt wrong.
This gem was damaged, but the mirror was functional. That meant, in all likelihood, the sentience of the gem within it was uncorrupted. She was not a monster beneath that plane of glass.
But stars, if she wasn’t in terrible shape. One wrong move and this Lapis Lazuli would likely shatter, be reduced to shards, wisps of dust lost to the sea breeze. It would be impossible to remove the delicate, beautiful blue stone without damaging it, likely beyond repair, on her own.
If Pearl tried to pluck it out, it would shatter.
Maybe that was better than being trapped in the mirror. Maybe it was worse.
Rose could have done it.
Rose could have done anything.
But she didn’t have Rose anymore.
It took two weeks for Pearl to think on the mirror again, and the Lapis Lazuli trapped within, after that day on the beach.
It was during the midst of one of their regular checks of the warp pads across the planet – she and Garnet were doing this sweep on their own, as Amethyst volunteered to stay behind and help watch Steven while Greg was at work.
They came upon, quite by circumstance of their routine, Rose’s fountain.
Of course.
Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? It was as if she hadn’t had all the pieces before until she held the mirror – it’s been millennia, after all – and now that she’d reignited that interest, that curiosity, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was hope for the gem yet, one more survivor, one last person she might be able to save.
Still, Pearl was a gem of… habit. She could not tell Amethyst for reasons of discretion, and she would not tell Garnet; not that she couldn’t, but she had a strong feeling the fusion would disapprove. It was easier to not tell her and avoid the chance that she would try to stop Pearl than to tell her and than have to lie about sneaking away – because, stars above, she was going to do this.
If anyone knew entrapment, if anyone knew the agonizing feeling of passing seconds, minutes, days, years, waiting, waiting – waiting for a happy ending that was not her’s – if anyone knew how that felt, it was her, and Pearl would not rest until she’d let the gem out of her prison, helped her find her own place in this crazy world; even if it meant she would go back to Homeworld, it should be this Lapis Lazuli’s choice to return, to be free, to move on – all things Pearl could not do.
It took her one week to pluck up the courage. One week to find for the most convenient time when Garnet would be away with Steven and Amethyst at some concert with her human friends.
One week, and she was back at Rose’s fountain, chest heavy, legs languid with conflict.
Was this a mistake? It was Rose’s mission that all gems should be free, free to choose their own destiny. But what if the Lapis Lazuli does return to Homeworld? They’re capable of flight – she could run. If she runs, we could all die.
If Lapis Lazuli runs, she’ll have failed Rose. Again.
But, call her bitter if you want, Pearl couldn’t push down the black, frustrating thoughts that told her but Rose isn’t here, now is she? She left Pearl behind, and it was Pearl’s choice now – her probably stupid, most likely reckless, totally fallible, choice.
“Well,” she said with a light sigh, sounding much more confident than she felt. A small smile tugged at her lips as she looked at her own reflection in the polished surface of the mirror, kneeling at the edge of the fountain. “Here goes nothing. I’m not sure if you can hear me, I’ll try not to hurt you…”
Of course, Rose’s lachrymal essence worked almost immediately, the small divots and broken pieces of the blue stone-face stitching back together, the gemstone restored from wherever the water flowed.
Once it was fully healed, the cerulean, smooth surface as fresh as the day it was wrought from an oceanic Kindergarten, Pearl’s grin widened and she carefully tucked the pads of her fingers over the flat back of the stone, where the material sat flush against cold metal.
She tugged. Hard.
With a quick, high pitched crack – audible even with the mirror still beneath the water of Rose’s fountain – the front face of the mirror shattered, tiny pieces of the broken tool sinking and other pieces floating to the surface, casting reflections of the day and shadows beneath the surface in a twinkling sort of broken kaleidoscope.
It was pretty, certainly, but Pearl hardly noticed.
The gem watched in – in what, terror? Fascination? Horrified realization? Pride? A mixture of those things, really – she watched as a dazzling blue light began to spill out from the gemstone, forming narrow shoulder blades and a lithe frame, shorter and slightly more toned than her own, blue skin dark and her accompanying skirt-top combination darker. A bow circled her throat, and her hair was just long enough to sweep over the curves of her shoulder, leaving her arms exposed.
Compared to the blue gem’s grace, the resounding flop she made when she sagged back into the water, sinking like the stone she’d been named for, was less than awe-inspiring.
Oh, stars.
Pearl had met Lapis Lauzli’s before – dozens, hundreds, probably – but never had she been so close to one, never had she automatically bounded over the side of a fountain and drenched herself in the process when the figure fell, limp beneath the gentle lapping water as it flowed around them in the channels Rose had built.
“Wait, you’re being stupid,” Pearl chastised, still picking up the gem bridal style while she began to rouse, orienting herself back into the plane of having a hard-light body. “Gems can’t drown.”
Blinking, eyes unfocused, the gem looked up. “What… am I…?”
“Oh, um. Hello.” Sheepishly, Pearl began to float-kick-push (it wasn’t exactly her most graceful moment, okay?) her way back to the edge, hoisting Lapis up first and then pulling herself out, kneeling beside the girl’s soaked form on the ground, cobbled and craggily but comfortably warm from the sun. “I’m Pearl, um, clearly. And you’re Lapis Lazuli. I found you in the mirror.”
“You… found me…” Lapis repeated, her mouth slow and tongue having difficulty forming the words. And then, in a flash of recognition, she shot up to sitting and shoved Pearl back, a harsh growl ripping from her throat. “You! You knew I was in there! I’ve been in there for thousands of years!”
“I – I know, I realize – I’m sorry, really. I’m sorry,” Pearl repeated, hands up defensively, but Lapis’ fury was beyond reason. Her hands moved through the air like leaves twirling through the autumn breeze, and from the movement, a massive fist of fearsome currents rose from the fountain, slamming down into her without hesitation.
Pearl’s legs couldn’t bare the weight, though she managed to drop back far enough so her gem wouldn’t get nicked in the process.
“You kept me prisoner in your gem! You’re sick!” Lapis cried, furious and emotional and wrought with contempt
“I know! I know I’m… I know what I am,” Pearl leveled with her, struggling beneath the crushing force of Lapis’ hydrokinetic fist. Her voice remained hard, and she was resolved to at least say her piece, to make her peace. “And I’m sorry. If I could go back and change things, stars above, I would. But I can’t – please, let me try to make it better! I want to make it better.”
After several tense seconds, quiet but for the light trickle of water over stones, the vice that held her against the jagged stones lessened.
“How can you make this better? You’ve taken – you’ve taken more time from me than I’ve been alive,” Lapis carded fingers through her own hair, eyes wide with the horrible realization of her own words. Indeed, Pearl felt each syllable like little knives, pressing up against her spine, daring her to move.
“I don’t – I don’t know how I’ll do it, but please. I don’t want to be the gem I was. I’m – I want to be different. Let me make it up to you. Please.”
Finally, the water ran loose overtop her, running into the crevices and feeding the parched earth around them. Pearl leaned up slowly, eyeing the blue gem with an unassuming, forgiving expression. Lapis still looked unsure, hurt, confused. She noticed, for the first time, where they were and the images of Rose carved into the stone fountains.
“I… I don’t know where I am. What happened? Please, I – ”
“Hey, hey,” Pearl interrupted gently, a small smile on her lips. “It’s okay. I can explain as much as you want. I promise, I’ll make this up to you.”
The words were a reflex, meant for Lapis’s comfort more than anything, but the turn of phrase smacked her sharply with realization.
Another promise.
Maybe, just maybe, she could keep this one.
For them, love came slowly. Often awkwardly. Hesitantly.
And yet, completely.
It wasn't exactly what either of them would call love, either. That held weight and sentiment and carried with it spoken attachments. All of their shared affection, feelings, guarded respect -- it all went unsaid. For them, that was enough.
Brief glances during mundane things, shy touches during the days, too-much space between them on the couch. Their love was – it was unconventional. It was Pearl trying to explain human culture, and Lapis forgoing her lectures in favor of television; Lapis trying food with Amethyst, and seeing Pearl’s chagrin at the mess they’d made, taking dutiful time to wipe down the counter and the dishes. It was awareness of the other’s discomforts, limits, sensitivities, sometimes to a fault. Starry-nights on the beach, absolute awful attempts at conversation, catching themselves before they said something hurtful.
Sometimes – rather, regularly – their differences would bare their ugly teeth, manifesting in cynicism, arguments, doubts. These moments usually resulted in storming away from each other, and Pearl wondering if it would be the last time she saw that gemstone walk away from her, those framed, thin shoulders shake with anger.
Even as it hurt, even as that nagging fear coiled her stomach into knots, Pearl never asked her to stay. That is not to imply Pearl would have been able to stand to see her go. Pearl wanted to ask her to be a Crystal Gem, or at least stay with them on Earth, indefinitely, but Pearl could not take that choice away from her – not after all she’d already taken from Lapis.
But Lapis never left.
Steven made love easier, during those first few awkward months of summer and subsequent autumn. He was one-year old now, his baby talk a little more coherent, his wide eyes sparkling at anything Pearl said or anything Lapis did, and it helped that they were both abundantly awkward around him.
More often than not, Pearl tried to speak to him like a proper adult, or would ignore him entirely and try to talk to Rose. She was being stupid, and she knew that, and somedays these one-sided conversations ended in her standing teary-eyed beneath the black skies of night over Earth, eyes seeking out Homeworld’s galaxy in spite of the cruelty she’d know there.
Lapis, on the other hand, didn’t bother speaking to him at all.
She would manipulate water, juice, milk – anything in a liquid state, really – to his pleasure, smiling when he laughed, but she didn’t find words effective with Steven. Oh, but if she didn’t adore him – he was pure, happy energy that easily banished away her hurting heart, her aching doubts, her constant fears. They sat in front of the TV together for hours, she would eat with him, and, once or twice, cried with him, too.
She wondered what something so small had to be sad about. Sometimes, she wondered what she really had to be sad about, too.
Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst had been gone one day in the winter, gone on a mission that Lapis wasn’t allowed to join. Not that Lapis ever sought to go with them; she still had a million doubts as to the creed behind such missions, especially with Pearl’s beloved Rose gone and effectively trapped inside of Steven, by the way they explained it. In any event, it was cold at the Temple, and Greg had gone upstate to meet a “radio man about some new nozzles,” so Lapis brought out some blankets Pearl had set aside for them and they wrapped themselves up in swaths and swaths of the plush material, Steven giggling and eyes bright the whole time.
One of her favorite things about Steven was his little fingers and hands. They grabbed at everything they could fit around – which, admittedly, wasn’t much. Her own fingers were a popular choice, but food utensils, markers, toys, the remote to the TV in the back of Greg’s van – these were all frequent objects of his attentions. The best moments were when he was captivated by something, truly enraptured by little things, and Lapis would get his attention by booping him on the nose.
Garnet, for all her doubts and cold familiarity, had shown Lapis that move. It was worth it.
The minutes turned to hours in their frosty little shack, and the gem silently thanked whatever Bismuth had probably constructed the Temple – it was atop some sort of tectonic… thing… (she was a terraformer, not a researcher, okay?)… that kept the ground pleasantly warm most of the year, but today, even such comforts ran chill.
Steven’s pale skin had reddened around the edges. His ears, the tip of his tiny nose, the apples of his cheeks – all stained pink, and he seemed increasingly uncomfortable.
Lapis tried to distract him with games, reading, or her usual hydrokinetic distractions, but it was clear he was unhappy to be so cold. It made her nervous, of course – she was cold, a hard-light body of a frozen gemstone, the image of water, not of warmth, so how was she supposed to know when it would get to be too much? Garnet mentioned before they left that the temperature would get low tonight, but Greg was supposed to be back before it was an issue.
Future vision wasn’t perfect, though. What if she was wrong? Would Steven be okay?
With great, great restraint, Lapis managed to keep her panic in-check. There was little she could do for Steven beside try to distract him from the discomfort, add more blankets, wipe away his sniffled nose. It worked surprisingly well, a little bit of bouncing helped to keep his temperature up, and it seemed like he would be fine.
They were fine. No big deal. Lapis had babysat a million times and had a hundred hosts of similar worries, but Steven was always fine.
But then, white particles – almost like tiny stars, perhaps? – began to fall from the sky and touch down on the beach and Lapis thought one thing only –
Oh, hell no.
Internally, she apologized to Pearl – she knew how the gem felt about cursing, but some of Amethyst’s more colorful language had wiggled its way into Lapis’s vocabulary anyways.
“Oh, oh – what is it, oh god, Steven, what do I do?”
“Lappa!” He cheered in return to her bolting to her feet, hands gripping the sides of her head in fear. “Lappa Lappa!”
“Pearl’s never said – what is it? Oh stars, don’t touch it! Get away from it, here, here in the blankets, yes,” she coached Steven back to sitting, which didn’t take much effort on his wobbly legs but he had reached out and prepared to grab a falling…? Falling…? She didn’t know what it was, but the only thing it reminded her of was the menacing ash that fell to the earth after a fire. Oh god, was there a fire?
Lapis could put out a fire, but she didn’t see any fire. Maybe she should just… just run a quick flood over the city? Put out any potential fires in any of the human houses? That would cover her bases. Yes. That could work.
“Lappa, picka?” Steven asked, voice whiney, and she appeased the request without thinking, bundling him tighter in the blankets as she scooped him into her arms, humming and rocking him automatically.
The grounding weight in her arms helped to calm her, however slightly, against the raging fear that continued to build as the ash-stars began fall in earnest, gathering in little clumps over the crags in the cliff around the Temple. Lapis moved them back further and further towards the Temple door, sitting behind the warp pad, Steven cooing and wiggling merrily in her arms.
It took almost ten whole minutes before the Crystal Gems finally arrived, a lifetime if you asked Lapis. (Yes, she spent an actual lifetime trapped in a mirror, so, no, the irony wasn’t lost on her.)
The light of their bodies hadn’t even stopped coalescing into solid form before the gem was on her feet, near hysterics, fighting with herself to shove Steven into Pearl’s arms and hold him tighter against her chest.
“Pearl, thank goodness, you have no idea – there’s something happening! We’re under attack, in danger, I don’t know – there’s no fire but there has to be and I’m not sure why but Steven is shivering and I think he’s afraid and I am so – why are you laughing?!”
Amethyst had started first, and whispering something to Pearl, the thin gem’s own lips quivered until she too released a breathy peel of laughter. Steven joined in, and Garnet smirked before mysteriously walking forward, entering the Temple in silence.
Indignant, Lapis tucked her arms tighter around Steven when Pearl finally walked forward, a deep-set scowl in her brow. “Don't laugh! I’m worried about him!”
She wanted to shake Pearl by her stupid, dainty, pretty shoulders – because why was she smiling at Lapis like that? All… all… fond and soft! Who gave her the right?
“I’ll uh, you know, go help G… or whatever,” Amethyst tossed the words over her shoulder, already slinking off towards the Temple entrance, leaving Steven to two gems, one glaring, the other glowing.
“It’s fine, Lapis, I promise,” she held up a hand, apologetic, but the smirk remained on her lips and it only infuritated the blue gem more. “He’s fine, I mean, it’s much too cold for him right now but we’re not being attacked. This is snow.”
Eyes narrowed, Lapis continued to pivot inward, away from Pearl as she clung to Steven. “…Snow?”
“Heh. I hardly believe it, you’re, well, you, and you don’t know what snow is?”
“And what do you mean by that?” Lapis’s lip curled. This was one of the things that had always bothered her about Pearl – her superiority complex, her incessant know-it-all attitude. It was a bitterly seeded thing, but sometimes, Lapis couldn’t help but feel the ingrained teachings of Homeworld rear her head – you’re just a Pearl, she wanted to say, to throw some of the bite back in her face. Lapis didn’t, but oh how she imagined somedays.
“Please, Lapis,” Pearl’s tone had softened. Her eyes, too. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just – snow is a weather pattern here on Earth. It’s just…”
A white hand outstretched over the lip of the cliff, where the stone carving would not protect them, and Lapis braced herself for Pearl’s hand to singe off or be blown to bits.
Instead, a gentle white flake fell into her palm and… melted.
“It’s water, Lapis. It can’t hurt you; I wouldn’t let it, even if it could.” The gem’s cheeks were dusted with the same shade of her eyes – oh, gosh, it was pretty, wasn’t it?
“…T-Thank you.” Crap, crap, now Pearl was smiling at her; Lapis felt her own face heat up, warmth rushing up her neck and up to the tips of her ears. Her whole visage was tinted dark blue, and she averted her eyes.
This – this is why she would be better off back on Homeworld, or fulfilling her duty as a terraformer on some Gem forsaken planet – not here, not on Earth, where there was weather and pretty gems who fiercely defied their titles, whose beaming smile dazzled, who Lapis wanted to hate with every fiber of her being but couldn’t, couldn’t, because she was too kind and gentle and sweet to each and every one of her needs.
The two stood in stony, tense silence, neither looking at each other, neither sure what to say after the embarrassing moment.
Still very much present, Steven was eyeing Lapis with a mystified sort of wonder.
“Hmm,” he said, raising a hand and pushing on the ‘squish’ of Lapis’s cheek. “B’ue... Lappa b’ue. Por’ whi’e but…” He pointed to Pearl and gestured his own cheeks. “Why Por’ b’ue now?”
Lapis’s lips thinned in her attempt not to laugh, but all hope was lost when Pearl’s skin darkened at being so clearly called out. In fact, the more obvious her skin tinted, the more intrigued Steven seemed, and soon he was nudging and wiggling his way over to Pearl to be held instead.
Carefully, they switched the infant between them, and Lapis may have let her hands linger over Pearl’s forearms just a moment longer than necessarily.
“Heh – now Por’ really b’ue!”
Lapis looked up, smiling despite herself – she was really blue, wasn't she?
Lamely, she offered, “It… suits you. With the – the snow and all behind you and stuff. I don’t know.”
Pearl stilled, eyes wide as they slid slowly from the child in her grasp to the gem beside her. Then, nervously, she shifted Steven’s weight to hold in one hand, her other fingers itching in the space beside Lapis before, finally, the cold, thin hand came to twine with her own, and Lapis felt like she was the one who was melting, forget about the weather.
I promise, I’ll make this up to you.
They weren’t there yet. Not quite. Not yet.
But, Pearl was slowly making good on her promise.