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It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
It had started out so simplistically. Drifting from planet to planet, her duty was lonesome work. She had preferred it to be so. Quietly, she would rearrange landscapes, hauling and reforming entire oceans, allowing access to the minerals hidden beneath what had once been ice and frigid waves. To her it was a kind of artistry, one she was certain went unappreciated for everything outside of its usefulness. She had never been a fighter, never had use for the kind of weapon so commonplace among her kind; her power gave her all she needed, and she performed her duties peacefully, a solitary advance on watery wings before the arrival of the hordes and their machines.
The battlefield had never been a place for her.
Still, when Blue Diamond called for arms, she was obligated to answer. She could not understand the taking of Earth or its importance, its relevance when compared to the rest of the galaxy. Like many things, the assertion of dominance among her people was a concept she had never cared for, but it was a fact that even she could not escape from.
She had agreed to imbue new structures with her magic, keeping them both protected from and guarded by the ocean that surrounded them. They would be difficult to find, and to attack, creating several operative bases for weapons and artifacts that Blue Diamond could use while advancing in the war for Earth. They would be safe.
At least, they should have been.
When the Crystal Gems took the sea shrine, Lapis Lazuli had been the last to know. She had been charged with creating pockets deep under the waters where new crystals could be formed, in areas as yet untapped by any gem. The solemnity of her duty was nothing new to her, with no hands to assist and no superiors drilling in orders down upon her while she performed. It had always been, and would always be, lonesome work.
But this time, instead of the very superiors she had once sought to avoid, it was the banner of Rose Quartz above the glimmer of bloodied blades and shattered gems that greeted her upon her return, the amalgams of countless eyes glowering and limbs perched among the ruins of their victory.
Her prison was a sensible one, given what they could do with a prisoner who could do nothing but share information. Long years were spent in safely in stasis in the mirror -- no, as the mirror -- interrogated and ordered, until there were even times that she forgot who Lapis Lazuli was supposed to be, the person whose story no one ever thought to ask.
Eventually, the questions stopped coming, and even that purpose dwindled away. Centuries passed in quiet, and the mirror Lapis Lazuli entertained herself with the only thing she had: the memories of home.
Until, one day, her vision returned as she was held by of one of a race of creatures she knew as “human.” It was the same race she had become trapped here fighting over the cause of, any miniscule reason so distant compared to the cost. She stayed silent -- at least, for a time. She had long since lost her purpose, and even this was preferable to her prison.
What she had not expected was for this human to treat her as anything beyond the object she had become, and for the first time in many millennia, in the hands of a small alien named Steven, Lapis Lazuli the mirror remembered what it was like to be Lapis Lazuli the gem.
She remembered what it was like to be free.
She should have known better than to think it could be so simple.
The cruel familiarity of the sinking feeling in her chest upon arriving at her home world to a greeting party of weapons offered her no solace. All around her, marring the planet’s surface, buzzed unrecognizable sights atop the ghosts of her past; where once there had been lakes and pillars of stone and trees of crystal (images she could still conjure so clearly in her mind’s eye), there now stood buildings that flashed and tittered, heavy and efficient. She had no resistance to offer when they guided her in bonds to bright, sturdy chambers where her history might be sorted, where it would be determined if she were, indeed, an ally or an enemy.
Lapis Lazuli knew all too well the process of interrogation. Once, at last, they had deemed her worthy of further investigation (“she came from Earth”, “she knows about the 'Crystal Gems'”), she was secluded to her own private room, locked away until further notice.
Her prison in home, surrounded by the walls of strangers.
With little time and little else left, she reached into the waters of her gem and crafted a message like her mirror images. If there were any instrument of old on Earth that, like her, could still be used, she pleaded the warning find him.
Her friend.
“I didn’t think there were many gems left who remember that war.”
She did not respond. The buzzing had not left her mind since first she had heard it, the soft current of energies she could not understand, and she couldn’t think, didn’t want to. For how the force field burned, the walls of the ship that cradled her felt cold.
“Lapis Lazuli,” the other gem repeated. “You’re practically an artifact. Oh, I guess that’s not far from the truth, is it?”
Still, she said nothing.
“Lighten up. This mission is already a waste of my time as it is, and your miserable face is only making it worse for the both of us.”
“Jasper,” came a strained voice. “Our fuel reserves are running low, reducing our energy efficiency to--”
“Then hurry up and pull us into port somewhere!” The enormous gem stomped away, leaving only empty space between the shield of yellow and a nervous gaze of green.
For a moment that gaze seemed almost curious, but the eyes of the gem trapped behind the force field hardened, and in another few moments, Lapis Lazuli was alone again.
“Unhand him!”
She watched as the Crystal Gems rushed toward them, as Steven trembled in midair. She saw fear in their eyes, but there was only determination in their steps, even as they dashed over the gemstones of the fallen fusion that was their comrade. It was the sort of selfless courage that Lapis Lazuli had never truly known, but perhaps, for him, she could understand it.
It made no difference, though. One after another, she watched them fizzle out and break apart with each swing of Jasper's tool, the now unconscious body of a human boy dangling from her other fist.
“Gather these things up and get them into the holding cells,” the huge figure barked, and with a precursory mutter, Peridot knelt to scoop each gem into her arms.
Lapis’ own arm was snatched with a rigid grip just as quickly. “You, too. You can answer for why you've been keeping secrets from me.”
She wasn’t looking at Jasper. She had noticed that on Steven’s expressionless face, a bruise had begun to form.
When the ship’s descending velocity reached dangerous speeds, her first thought had been a comforting one.
Somehow, he had won.
Fires raged around the wreckage, the pain and the weight suffocating, and the first sight she saw upon emerging sparked no more hesitance in her -- only the urge to flee.
For the last time, she was unable.
“Lapis, listen. Fuse with me!”
She didn't want to hear it. Jasper spoke as if she could understand, as if she could say she hadn’t treated her the same even without the trappings of an object. As if she could know what it was like to be a prisoner. Now, this gem wanted again to make her a prisoner -- one in her own body, trapped with everything she despised.
She stared at Steven's bruised face, his eyes wide, pleading.
Once, she could have told him what it had been like. She could have shown him lakes, pillars of stone, trees of crystal. But Lapis Lazuli had no home to go back to, no place that matched it anymore, and only one person had given her the chance to take her own freedom in a world where decisions were again and again made about her, made for her.
If she had no other choice, she would let this choice be her own, and it would not be against him.
If this was to be her new prison, then, she would not be alone.