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Without fanfare, a cell door morphs open and the topaz guard tosses her inside.
“Pearl!” She hears the familiar rustle of Rose’s dress as the entrance seals up again. A warm hand rests on her shoulder, steadying her as she pulls herself upright. Pearl sucks in a breath, trying to regain the energy that being hurled at the ground had knocked from her. She had almost forgotten how brutish Homeworld gems could be.
She looks up into Rose’s face. Whatever relief or happiness she expects or hopes to find there is absent. Rose’s expression sharpens for a moment before it crumbles. Pearl can see small beaded tears forming in the corners of her eyes. The curve of Rose’s bottom lip trembles—a contrast to the taut tension lines in her forehead.
“What…” Rose’s voice shakes. She takes a split second to recover. “What are you doing here?” she demands. “Oh Pearl, what have you done? How could you have been captured?”
“I wasn’t captured.” Pearl raises her chin, the defiance she’d learned during the war rising within her. “I sneaked onboard the ship before it took off.”
Rose’s eyes widen and a bolt like lightning flashes through them. “That’s even worse!” Hands place themselves on either side of Pearl’s face, holding their shared gaze steady. “Why would you do something so foolish?”
“I wasn’t going to just let them take you!” Pearl exclaims, a bit aghast that Rose seems not to understand her actions. There’s nothing complicated here. It will be just like the war again: the two of them side-by-side, cutting down their enemies left and right and fighting their way to freedom. They’ve been in much worse scrapes before. Why is Rose looking at her like she’s lost her mind? “I’m here, right here with you, so everything will be fine. We’ll just wait for an opening and then…”
“Pearl!” Rose grabs her by the upper arms and shakes her. Pink curls fall into her face, ringlets unusually loose and wild. There’s something frantic and desperate in Rose’s eyes that Pearl hadn’t seen since…
Since the corruption.
Pearl’s stomach flips. No. No. This wasn’t nearly as dire a situation as that. She opens her mouth to tell Rose so, to offer reassurance.
“Stop!” Rose cuts off the attempt. “Listen to me, Pearl!” she shakes her again. “You need to get out of here. When that door opens, make a run for it. Find a ship and get yourself back to Earth as fast as you possibly can.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been say—”
“Without me.”
Pearl can feel her war face go slack, falling into an expression of disbelief and horror as the words sink in. “I’m not going to leave you here, Rose! You know what we—” Her hand covers her mouth, stifling any further remarks in that vein. She waits impatiently for the effects to pass before trying again with different phrasing. “You know what they think happened! Who knows what they’ll do to you?”
“And if I run?” Rose stares into her eyes, into her very core, “Then they’ll hunt me down, destroying every world I hide on and every gem who helps me. And when they’ve finally caught me, they’ll still do whatever they plan to do now.” She sighs and her head drops down, bangs obscuring her face. “I could have fought back on Earth if that’s what I wanted to do. But I gave myself up. I wanted them to take me if it meant the rest of you would be safe.”
“Rose—”
“So why,” Rose’s head snaps back up, tears streaming from strained eyes, “didn’t you listen to me! I told you to stand down! That I would handle it!”
“And this is your way of handling it?” Pearl snaps back. “Surrendering? Giving yourself up to them?”
“What was I meant to do?” Rose throws her hands up, as though challenging Pearl to drop a solution in her lap. “That reconnaissance team was going to tell the diamonds there were rogue gems left on Earth. What if they’d sent an army or another corruption wave to wipe us out?”
“We would have fought back!” Pearl protests. “You would have protected us, like you did back then!”
“Back then everyone got wiped out!” Rose starts out shouting but the heat and volume get strangled halfway through. Her eyes widen—she looks surprised at herself—then she drops her head into her hands, resolutely not looking at Pearl. “I tried so hard. But I couldn’t protect anyone, and I couldn’t fix what I broke. I thought at least this time, no one else would get hurt because of me.”
Pearl braces herself against the wall. Her head reels. She has been Rose’s confidante for thousands of years. Rose told her everything, things that no one else was allowed to know. In all their time together, Pearl has never heard Rose talk like this.
“That’s…that’s not…it wasn’t…”
“It was.” Rose counters before she can even finish. Pearl is completely transparent to her eyes, while Rose is much closer to opaque. She had seemed content on Earth, with Pearl—and with the others. They had a whole life together there. It wasn’t perfect, and the planet was full of reminders of what they’d lost, but Pearl thought Rose was happy. Had she only been pretending?
Pearl’s rush of battle-ready energy plumets and she begins to feel real fear. The two of them are trapped. On Homeworld. And Rose has no intention of fighting. “What are you going to do?” she whispers, piercing the heavy silence.
Rose lifts her head. Pearl feels an electric shiver run down her spine. She can see a ghostly trace lurking behind those dark eyes.
“Something stupid.”
Pearl and Rose stand in the center of the courtroom, a very nervous blue zircon to their right. The chamber is guarded by four massive quartzes, destabilizers at the ready. Escape will be difficult, but Rose still wants her to run at the first chance. Pearl hasn’t quite decided whether to listen yet. She’s a free gem, after all. She doesn’t take orders.
A yellow zircon warps in on their left. She glances at the blue zircon and snickers. “Defending a rebel? Isn’t that treason?”
“I was assigned to this!” the blue zircon snaps defensively.
“Excuses, excus…wait.” The yellow zircon points in Rose’s direction, looking surprised and a little…offended? Pearl shifts protectively in front of Rose and the yellow finger, oddly, seems to follow. “Since when did you have a pearl?”
Pearl feels an embarrassed prickle in her neck. The blue zircon waves her hand dismissively.
“I don’t. She belongs to Rose Quartz.”
“No I don’t.” / “No she doesn’t.”
The zircons look quizzically at Rose, then Pearl, then at each other, then back at Rose. “Then whose is she?” the blue zircon scratches her head in puzzlement.
“She belongs to herself,” Rose answers firmly. The blue zircon’s jaw drops. The yellow zircon jumps back, features twisting in repulsion.
Pearl’s lips press into a thin line. She had not missed this.
The unwanted attention ends, though, when a burst of light draws everyone’s gaze to the front of the room.
“All rise for the luminous Yellow Diamond!”
“And the lustrous Blue Diamond.”
They are smaller, somehow, than Pearl remembers, and they’re pressed together in a way that isn’t exactly commanding. They look more like Ruby and Sapphire than two gem-crushing, planet-obliterating tyrants have any right to be. But despite the intimate pose, the sight of Blue and Yellow Diamond brings out every deeply-ingrained feeling of subservience and inadequacy that Pearl has worked so hard to smother. Her first instinct is to get on her knees and grovel. She fights against the impulse, mind warring against every photon in her being that screams you’re a pearl, you’re nothing. Her eyes dart to Rose, who had always been her source of strength.
Rose, well…Rose looks more tense than Pearl feels. She’s bracing—maybe to run, maybe to take a hit—and it’s brief, but Pearl sees her hand twitch. Her right hand.
The diamonds finally separate and stare down from their high vantage point. They’re large enough that Pearl can see every detail of their exaggerated features. Yellow is grinding her teeth together. Blue keeps half-blinking like there’s something wrong with her eyes.
“Rose Quartz…” Blue says in that wispy voice of hers that seems to chill the room.
“So, you were hiding on Earth all this time.” Yellow’s fists ball at her sides. “Blue, let’s forget the trial. She’s outrun justice long enough.”
“No.” Blue shakes her head. “I want to hear her make her case. I want to know what she thinks we’re going to do with her. Because I want to do something worse.”
It’s an old habit, and one born of affection instead of terror or duty: Pearl leaps in front of Rose, spreading her arms out like a shield. “Don’t touch her!” she shouts.
“Pearl.” Rose says her name low and warningly. She’s failing to be inconspicuous, but she doesn’t care!
Blue blinks and her eyes focus on Pearl. Her head tilts to the side, asking the question her mouth can’t quite form.
“Who let this ill-mannered pearl in here?” Yellow demands, looking around for the culprit. A low growl rumbles in Rose’s chest and Pearl can see blue zircon sweating and fumbling for an explanation she doesn’t have. With no answer forthcoming, Yellow continues, “Whoever her owner is, it’s obvious they don’t know how to contr—”
“I don’t have an owner!” Pearl’s indigence gives feeds a courage she can almost claim. “I’m a Crystal Gem!”
Yellow Diamond’s eye spasms. “This is absurd. Taking a pearl as a war prisoner? What incompetent buffoon is responsible for this?”
Pearl bristles, anger and pride boiling in her chest. These Homeworld gems are so stuck on the notion of pearls being servants and nothing else that they won’t even take her seriously as a prisoner! She’s about to whip out her spear and wipe that incredulous look off Yellow Diamond’s face, but she pauses when Blue Diamond lifts a hand.
“Wait. I recall there was a pearl with Rose Quartz when she and my entourage skirmished on Earth. Her presence may be of use here.”
Yellow huffs, unimpressed, but doesn’t argue the point. “Fine. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” She waves her hand and she and Blue take a seat on their respective thrones.
The yellow zircon is all too pleased to get started. “My Diamond,” she chirps. “My brilliant, opulent, radiant, glimmering—”
“‘My Diamond’ will suffice,” Yellow interrupts, mercifully cutting the bowing and scraping short, “or we’ll never get through this.”
“Of course, My Diamond.” The zircon clears her throat, recalibrating. “Rose Quartz,” she begins, gesturing to her right, “committed a crime so unprecedented that one can’t help but wonder why. Exhibit A:” She materializes a large screen with an image of the Earth on it. “This is what Rose Quartz turned on her own kind for—a small, insignificant planet of no use to the gem empire.”
She snaps her fingers and the screen changes to show footage of Beach City: humans running down the boardwalk, throwing water-filled projectiles, screaming and stuffing their mouths with goo. Pearl cringes at the accurate but unflattering depiction of Earth life. “It’s quite clear,” the zircon continues, “that any gem who could become attached to a useless planet filled with hideous organics and…” she side-eyes Pearl “…defective gems isn’t—”
“Pearl is not defective.” Rose barely raises her voice, but her tone is so clear and fervent that the words echo around the room. Pearl shivers, and she may even blush a bit. “What’s defective are Homeworld’s backwards ideas about—”
“There it is!” the yellow zircon points an accusing finger at Rose. “The passion! The fury that caused the diabolical Rose Quartz to shatter her own diamond!” She makes a show of hysterics while the blue zircon tries to downplay what Rose has said and…Pearl has had enough of this whole thing.
“Listen here, you twerp! You don’t know the first thing about—” Pearl’s hand claps over her mouth. The zircon takes advantage of her silence to continue as if Pearl had never spoken at all.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. How can we be sure this rose quartz is the same Rose Quartz who led the rebellion? We could go to the trouble of calling witnesses, but I believe a demonstration will be more effective.”
Pearl is still riding out the physical aftershocks of trying to mention their secret. She’s still irked that the yellow zircon keeps treating her like a non-sentient object. Rose is caught in a staring match with Yellow Diamond, who has been glaring daggers since Rose’s censure of Homeworld. Blue is still attempting to keep up the appearance of this being a proper trial.
They are all caught off guard when a heavy object abruptly collides with Pearl’s head.
Rose must call to her—Pearl can see her lips move around her name—but all she hears is a high-pitched ringing. The horrible sound is splitting her head open; she feels dizzy and ill. It feels like that one time she’d made the mistake of eating human food and spent the next several hours spewing it back up: thick and burning and vile. Pearl presses her hands to her ears, trying to muffle the sound, but her hands are suddenly too big and her head too small and her feet are where her knees are meant to be and…
Oh no.
She looks down at her hands. They glitch and distort and twist into loops.
Oh no.
Rose’s hands wrap around her shoulders. Her eyes fix on Pearl’s gem and her expression morphs from shock to anguish to fury. She shouts something over her shoulder at the yellow zircon, who smugly gestures in Pearl’s direction with an I dare you twist to her lips. The blue zircon frantically waves her arms in a protest that Rose does not heed. Instead, her grip tightens and she pulls Pearl in close.
For a moment that stretches into an eternity, Rose holds Pearl to her chest. Pearl relaxes and melts into the embrace. Everything around them disappears and it’s just her and Rose and the infinite cosmos. Warmth fills her core and she’s a little surprised they don’t fuse. Maybe her form is too unstable. Maybe Rose is resisting it.
The spell is broken when another spike of discomfort shoots through Pearl’s body from her gem. She lets out a garbled cry that catches Rose’s attention immediately. She tilts Pearl’s chin up and Pearl catches a quick glimpse of something in Rose’s eyes that she can’t name. But that emotion, whatever it is, dissolves into something that Pearl recognizes well.
A shining crystalline tear rolls down Rose’s cheek and falls onto Pearl’s gem.
A tingling sensation spreads through her. Pearl feels the rift in her form mend as the crack in her gem disappears, bringing an end to the pain and disturbance her body had gone through. She gasps and grabs onto Rose’s arms to steady herself.
“As you can see,” the yellow zircon’s voice draws her back to the moment, “the rumors about Rose Quartz’s healing abilities are true. This is how her ragtag group of off-color gems was able to outlast our superior Homeworld armies. It’s an unnatural ability that no other gem in history has possessed.”
Pearl’s palm presses over her lips; it’s not a steadying gesture.
“Rose Quartz did it, and that’s Rose Quartz,” the yellow zircon concludes with a hand wave. “I rest my case.”
“Oh, she’s good…” the blue zircon mutters in defeat.
Yellow Diamond claps loudly. “Well, I’m convinced! Time to execute.”
“Not yet,” Blue Diamond protests, eyes flickering from Yellow to Rose. “The defense still has to speak.”
“Right, well, uh…” the blue zircon stammers. “Before I start my very thought-out defense, I’d like to remind the court that Rose Quartz did turn herself in.”
“The court remembers.” Yellow Diamond crosses her hands over her chest. “And the court does not care.”
Blue and Yellow don’t care! They never have!
Pearl’s hand presses down harder.
“Uh, of course. Uh…innocent! The word ‘innocent’ can mean…oh, many different things…”
“She wanted to stop it.”
All eyes are on Rose as her pure voice cuts through the room again. She looks up at the diamonds and Pearl swears she sees Rose’s eyes flash pink. She wonders if anyone else notices.
“Do you tell that part of the story?” Rose challenges. “That Pink Diamond wanted to abandon the Earth colony?”
Yellow’s hands curl around the arms of her throne in a death grip. “What are you—”
“You remember, don’t you?” A note of frenzy slips into Rose’s tone. “When she came to you, needing help? Begging you to listen? Do you remember what you said to her?”
“Don’t you dare—”
“As long as you are there to rule—”
“Stop!” Blue’s voice interjects. “Stop this!”
“—this colony will be completed.”
“Rose!”
A flash of gold lightning shoots from Yellow Diamond’s hand, straight towards Rose’s gem. Rose swings her arm around, bringing her forearm in front of her torso. Her rose shield appears and absorbs the blast, scattering the light into harmless sparks around the chamber.
“She warned you about the Crystal Gems, but you didn’t take us seriously. Didn’t take her seriously. The colony was such a priority for you both that it didn’t matter to you if…”
Pearl waited until the other diamonds left before letting herself onto the observation deck. Pink’s back was toward her, left hand curled in a fist.
“What did they say, My Diamond?”
Pink made a funny noise. “I’m a fool, Pearl.”
“My Diamond?”
Pink turned around. There were tears streaming down her face. “I should have known it wouldn’t matter.”
But it did matter, didn’t it? Hadn’t it mattered so much that the diamonds razed their own colony to the ground?
Pearl’s other hand comes up to clamp down on the first.
“You never listened! Well, now I am going to make you listen!” Rose’s repressed feelings towards the diamonds are also resurfacing. The well of deep pain that had been sealed off long ago is now gushing everywhere. “You diamonds could have stopped it! The colony, the war, everything! You’re the ones who gave us the ultimatum to finish the colony or depose Pink Diamond!”
“Stop it!” Yellow Diamond hurls another barrage of electricity at Rose that she easily deflects. “Stop it! Shut your mouth!”
“And you have the gall to pretend to be sad she’s gone?” Rose shouts, borderline wails. “You’re only upset that you lost to a bunch of rebels! You never actually cared—”
“Enough!” Blue Diamond shrieks and a blue pall engulfs the room. Pearl falls to her knees, overwhelmed by the strength of Blue’s grief. It’s intense, all-consuming. Like there’s a big empty hole inside Pearl growing larger and larger until it will eventually devour her. Her vision is wet and blurry, but she still lifts her head to find Rose.
Rose is staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at Blue Diamond. Her normal delicate tears have morphed into ugly, gushing cascades. A cry of agony falls from her lips and Pearl knows that Blue’s power is affecting her on a far more personal level.
“Don’t you ever speak about Pink Diamond or what she thought or what we felt,” Blue moans. “You have no idea what she meant to us.”
Yellow somehow musters the strength to fight Blue Diamond’s onslaught long enough to reach her, to put grounding hands on her shoulders. Her emotions are becoming too much for even her to handle, and Blue releases them all from her grasp with a sob, burying her face in her hands and weeping as Yellow tries in vain to comfort her.
Rose is still staring at the diamonds. She is still crying, long after the rest of them have stopped. She seems frozen in place and Pearl wonders if she will reconsider, if there is still hope for a positive outcome. Rose presses her lips together for a moment, then shakes her head mournfully.
“You’re right. I don’t understand. I will never understand how you can feel something so strongly, but then act in a way that is completely opposite.” Rose clutches her chest, looking pained and unsure and so vulnerable. “I’m not blameless here. I did as much damage as you did. Maybe more. But Pink Diamond was selfish and thoughtless and cowardly.”
Rose’s shield vanishes. Her arm drops, leaving her unprotected. “And she deserved to be shattered.”
Yellow Diamond’s eyes flash. A furious, aching bellow sounds from behind gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. This time, her attack finds its mark. Rose poofs in a cloud of pink smoke, and they hear the unmistakable clink of a gem hitting the floor.
They all see it before Yellow does. The zircons’ eyes grow larger than their monocles. The quartz guards grunt in confusion and drop their weapons. Blue’s eyes are dry and fixed to the ground in shock. Yellow doesn’t see it. She raises her fist above her head. She doesn’t see, and no one else is saying anything.
Pearl shouts uselessly from behind the iron grip her two hands have over her mouth. She digs her nails into her hands, willing the pain to be so unbearable that she physically has to move them away. She tries to run, to move from her spot, to get in between Rose and the blow, but every photon in her body is focused solely on making sure that she follows Pink’s last order.
No! You don’t understand!
Stop! You’re making a huge mistake!
It’s not what you think!
Don’t you see? She’s right there!
She’s the one you’ve been missing! She’s the one you’ve been grieving for!
Please, please don’t!
I love her! And you love her too!
Don’t make us lose her, please!!
Yellow does see. Pearl sees her eyes widen a fraction before her hand slams down, unable to stop at that speed.
Yellow sees the pink diamond lying on the floor a split second before shattering it into pieces.
Pearl screams. It starts in her core and tears through her physical form and stabs into her gem painfully. Her hands dig into the floor and she screams and wails. The words she could have used to save Rose are gone, unheard.
It’s over, isn’t it?
“Yellow!” Blue shrieks, finally finding her voice. “What have you done?”
“I…I didn’t…I didn’t want…” Yellow stares dumbly and tries helplessly to scoop the shards back together.
“Oh my stars! I prosecuted a diamond!”
“I defended a diamond! And lost!”
“I DIDN’T WANT THIS!” Yellow whips her head around, shouting to anyone who will listen. “I never wanted to hurt her!”
“But you did,” Pearl weeps softly, wondering if anyone will hear either of them or care. “Long before today.”