Chapter Text
There’s not much left that you remember of this planet—it’s all assorted shades of green and blue and pink. It’s a house you once lived in, were born in. Protected from invaders. Survived under wave under wave under wave of the Enemy. This house came to see you as a daughter. It doesn’t feel like it now, of course. It’s been too long and not even the invitation to return home stays open forever. New daughters are made. New sons. New family, they can be found. You can be replaced—that’s a first—and you have been, completely, wiped out.
You like the cliff face. Like a lot of things it is absolute. It doesn’t lie to you about the fact that if you go too far you will fall, and it doesn’t hold onto any pretence that it will catch you if—when—you do. Or the fact that it protects the shrine built on it from storm surges and furious waves like an iron spine. If it chips or collapses or buckles under the weight, nobody will blame the cliff.
It carries an awful lot of weight, that cliff. It’s taken its fair share of beatings. It’s likely not the same shape it used to be, or remembers being, but the changes it undergoes are both its own and imposed. The forces that make it change forever out of control.
Yeah, you’re the cliff, but with blame. This makes it easier to fall away.
Nobody likes you here and that suits you perfectly fine because you don’t much like them either. They’re quick to move on, because they’re Rose’s soldiers. This has always been what they wanted. Nobody cared about the wants of the soldiers, forcibly shunted into the Earth’s crust. Mostly because you're the only Homeworld gem that survived the war. There’s pity in them when they look at you, and not a word said despite the mouths that open then ponder then close. You’ve seen a lot of backs recently. Gems who’s names you don’t know, names of those you do. Yellow Diamond never took you in again. You were no longer Pink’s prized soldier. Were you ever?
This calls for more thought.
When the corrupted gems healed she had you locked up in the Beta Kindergarten and then released arbitrarily when the small boy kicked up a fuss. They had a lot of learning to do, or something. That strange creature, gem-but-not, Rose-but-not, Pink Diamond-but-not. She never thought about apologising for that. But, then, nobody apologises to you. You were happy there, though. It felt right. Because whatever the Diamonds thought best was always best. Even now the programming works wonders.
The ocean has a song, still, that calls. It still hums, letting you know its deep, crushing embrace still has a home for you. But you’re too tired to make the trek. Too tired for anything. It’s all a bit much, isn’t it?
She stands at the beach and looks up at you with a squint. You don’t notice her, but you have before, and are unsure as to how she can see through all that hair. What you think is that she hates you, but she’s been trying to find a way to tell you that she doesn’t. Other gems tell her to, of course. Hate you, that is. That’s not one of ours. We all remember what she did. What she did to you, Ocean.
But they didn’t feel what she did. And she knows better than to try and explain. Words are not her power.
At least a muzzled dog has someone who cares enough to muzzle it. You? No. You’re a pure-bred Rottweiler running around with a leash and nobody to hold it. Some would think it wiser to have you join your sisters. Goodness knows when you’ll snap out of it and try something.
I tried to find someone from Beta. I did. Truly. All of Holly Blue’s are Prime. They don’t know you. They don’t want to know you.
You’re the only Homeworld gem left here, because not even Homeworld will have you now. What purpose is there in an old soldier, who went from hero to villain overnight?
Earth gems hate you for being born on the wrong side. Homeworld gems hate you for doing what the Diamonds programmed—nobody ever turns this gaze to the Diamonds, however. Their position remains, as it always will be, the same.
Her horns are like yours. These little pointed obelisks jutting just above your forehead. They ache, dully, all the time. Forever present and radiating down the front of your face like the sun has its rays on you no matter how you turn. Like a nail chewed down a fraction too far. It keeps every thought half in, half complete. It demands just enough attention to leave you unable to think more than a few seconds ahead.
You spot her—hi, hello—on the beach. She aches in the same way.
You’re too close to the edge. The wind at its lip whips at your hair, flings it into knots and pale snakes and waves, a constant crash of sunlit sea foam around your face. Salt clings to your lips and the sea and the wind become the same sizzling roar. There is no push from behind but a pull. Thick tendrils of air tugging and lashing your arms, blotted with corruption. It’s the most encouragement you’ve had in years. It is your first meaningful step forward.
The earth beneath you begins to sink. The baked, sun-and-sea blasted stone cracks open like a dry bone.
Your hands—powerful, strong, useless things—stretch out towards the cerulean sky. They dig deep into the infinite blue, marred with stripes of white and grey-white with edges painted vivid pinks and lustrous reds and faded umber oranges and you want to touch them, to swim inside each colour.
You can’t fly.
Neither can I.
But, then. I am not the one about to walk straight off of a cliff.
I try to catch you.