Work Text:
You know, from the moment you are formed, how valuable you are. A delicate, symmetrical fleck of biotite mica who survived the stresses of her own formation is to be treasured. Most crumble before they are even able to form; they cease to be, their material harvested for pigment and paint or pressed into sheets as light as air.
But not you—and not her. You are both put to work, a matching pair of light and dark, in a tiny studio all your own.
Together you draft and measure and debate; you present blueprints and floorplans and color palettes so meticulously detailed, they must be magnified four hundred percent for the Diamonds to even see them properly. Temples, spires, solariums, high-class residences, even renovations within the Diamonds’ palace. You are comfortable; you are safe.
You think you are safe.
You think, after a few thousand years working side by side with your other half, that she’s really rather beautiful.
Quietly, in moments too small for anyone to notice but the two of you, something blossoms. You want to touch her hand, hold it in yours; you want to lay your head in her lap, or press up against her back and her gem to put your chin on her shoulder. You do, and so does she. It’s not your purpose to love, and yet you can. Can others? Do others? You wonder.
Then without warning, you are asked to renovate your own perfect studio. Another mica is moving in, a promising young flake who, you’re told, did stunning work on Yellow Diamond’s latest colony. Aesthetics are shifting in the Yellow court, says the jade who brought the message, and this young fleck is the forerunner. You have no choice; you take the specifications the new mica sends, and you expand the space that has so long been your private, happy home.
A jolly bismuth with her gem in her chest does the construction, cooing over how small everything is, though the addition seems enormous to you; when the new mica finally arrives, you understand why.
Her coppery gem takes up the whole right side of her face, partly covered with a cloud of curly hair; she brings with her a seed pearl, no taller than an aquamarine, a pale orange gem over her right eye to match her master. The pearl’s head just brushes the vaulted ceiling you thought extravagantly high, and she hovers behind the mica with a protective air.
“Just right!” the mica says, looking up at the pearl and then back at you. “Thank you, I’m very grateful. I didn’t want Pearl to have to stoop in our own rooms.” Then she grins, half of it disappearing beneath her gem. “I’m Muscovite, pleased to meet you. The aquamarine who escorted me pointed out some of your work, it’s very lovely.”
“Biotite,” you reply together, and your other half adds a quick, surprised-sounding “happy to be working with you.”
Muscovite and the pearl share a quick, speaking look, and you don’t know what it means.
***
You find out just days later, when another jade comes and tells you to pack your things. Yellow Diamond, in her radiant wisdom and generosity, is lending you to Pink Diamond, who has just received her first colony. A team of lapis lazulis are already at work terraforming, and another team of bismuths have begun to build basic structures and housing; you are to report to the Earth immediately to design the standard array of beautiful spaces for the most high-class gems. It’s an honor, on the surface of things, but you can’t help but feel that you’ve been demoted.
Still, there’s no choice; together you pack up your lives, say goodbye to Muscovite and her delicate pearl, follow a jade escort to the nearest warp pad and arrive with your bags at Earth’s galaxy warp. There’s an agate there to meet you—Iris, her gem on her shoulder, regards you with less than the usual respect—and you are quickly installed in temporary housing attached to the bismuth barracks.
It’s a change of fortune, but...Earth is interesting. Charming. The bismuth who worked on your studio on Homeworld is here too, and she visits whenever she’s able, her large presence reassuring. A lapis lazuli takes you on an aerial tour, and the natural features of the planet spreading out beneath you suggest all kinds of fascinating mathematical beauty, and inspire your designs like nothing has done before. Together, always together, you create spires and temples and arenas, everything that is asked of you and more, and twice a day you sit outside your new home curled against each other to watch the nearest star appearing or vanishing behind the horizon line.
You are bursting with creative energy, and you are bursting with love; Iris Agate, you learn, is not particularly fond of either. Pink Diamond is much more interested in her Kindergartens and the production of new gems, she tells you, and values efficiency over creative flourishes. “I need you to start designing separately. It’s a waste of time and resources for you both to work on every design. I can’t have the bismuths sitting idle waiting for work.”
You know, have always known, you are valuable—but here, right now, Iris Agate is in charge. Together, awkwardly, you both salute. “Yes, My Agate.”
Working separately is, you’re surprised to find, interesting. You are free to explore ideas without compromise, without any give and take; you create lofty structures for the air, floating land masses mixed with sweeping stairs and domes and columns and statuary. Your other half, when she shows you what she’s doing, has taken the opposite approach, burrowing down into the planet with elaborate cave structures and underground lakeside retreats. You show them to Bismuth when she stops by, and she peers at them with enthusiasm, but she seems...distracted.
“I’m sorry, it’s just...there are rumors that a quartz from one of the Kindergartens stole some bigwig’s pearl and turned traitor,” she says. “Trying to stop the colony. The upper crusts are all worked up about it, they’ve been coming down hard on us. Be careful with Iris, okay? She’s been in a mood.”
Iris Agate is, indeed, in a mood. She stops by when you and your other half are curled together in a cozy tangle in the grass, Bismuth lounging nearby, all three of you watching the sun come up. Iris Agate wants to know why you aren’t inside drafting, why Bismuth is lazing about, don’t you know this colony has to be completed as quickly as possible? You show her what you’ve designed; she grumbles about excessive flourishes, but what gets built is Pink Diamond’s decision. She takes your blueprints and sketches and gives you back a stern look.
You hear more rumors of the rebellion, of more Gems joining their ranks; two of your recent designs are approved, and Bismuth reports that building has started on them. “You both do some really beautiful work,” she says, sitting slumped outside your little apartment. “But lately I’ve been thinking...what if I could make other things? Make whatever I want, instead of what the Diamonds want?”
“What would you make?” your other half asks, almost a whisper.
Bismuth’s eyes are far away. “I think I’d start with a sword.”
That’s the last time you see her for a long, long time. Cautiously, you ask Iris Agage where she went. “Transferred,” Iris replies, but it feels like a lie. “I’ve decided it’s time to move the two of you to more appropriate housing. I need each of you to design an apartment.”
“Can’t we design it together?” you say, and Iris’ mouth flattens into a thin, hard line.
“It’s best to have options, isn’t it?”
You design two apartments; even without consulting each other, they are mostly identical. Iris Agate takes them, and you hear no more about it. The rumor mill that is the bismuth barracks, their boisterous voices carrying, tells you why—the rebellion continues to grow. This planet is at war, and one of the bismuths’ ranks, the one with the chest gem, your Bismuth, has defected to fight for the other side.
You imagine her somewhere, forging a sword; you feel, suddenly, like you are caught between her hammer and the anvil. But if you can keep your heads down, do your work, please Iris Agate...at least you’ll have each other.
***
Your other half has gone outside to see the sunrise; you’re on your way to join her when you hear her scream your name.
There are two aquamarines outside; one of them has her in a bubble. “Biotite!” she calls again, muffled, throwing herself against the bubble wall, and you run toward her, screaming her name back. Then you’re in a bubble, in the hands of an aquamarine, lifting off the ground, up, away. You press yourself against your cage and scream yourself hoarse, because it’s all you can do as your lover is carried in the other direction, vanishing so quickly out of sight.
As your captor ascends the Sky Spire, you think you might be in shock. The sight of your design realized, floating high above the planet, barely registers; there’s a numbness in your fingers, a buzzing in your chest and head. The aquamarine deposits you in front of a tiny domed structure—an apartment, the apartment you designed—and leaves you there.
For the first time since you were formed, you are alone.
***
You’re too high up to jump without shattering; you’re too small to leap the distance between the floating stones of the path down. Even if you could escape, you don’t know where she is.
For a thousand years of war, you’re trapped there, designing structures your other half would like, would want to see. Aquamarines, and once a lapis lazuli, come to collect your work; you never know, nor care, if any of them are built. You feel every day of that thousand years like a blow to the gem, chipping away at your mind, at your heart.
Then—
A bright, searing light, and a terrifying song. You reach out, as if you could grasp her hand in yours—
Then, nothing.
***
You surface from the deep, strange darkness with a tingling through your gem and across your form; you surface from the water you find yourself in with a sudden, wild hope.
She’s there. She’s kissing you. You take her hand, and you’ll never let it go again.