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The Renegade complicates things.
As a leader, she gives meaning to the word terrifying. With wide eyes and carefully-smug lips lending to expression, she stands before an army made up mostly of quartzes and reprimands. Congratulates. Grieves. Inspires. Stands back-to-back with the bismuth under the cover of Earth’s night and tells war stories with grandiose gestures and invisible weapons in hand, lit up by stars and the Moon (that’s what the humans call it—like it is the only one to have ever existed!) and dancing campfire. Dramatic, humorous…big. Not like… Just, big on the inside—in a way that you’ve never known anything or anyone to be.
She gives meaning to the word courageous. She gives meaning to the word surprise.
You were taught that a pearl couldn’t be any of those things. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that you, like everyone else, were taught that gems couldn’t be anything other than what they were made to be. And pearls, as a rule, are planful, meticulous, loyal—pretty. The Renegade is those things. She couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a pearl—with the organza bow tied around her middle, her posture, her stance. With the way her stories turn into songs; with the way her fighting could pass for dancing if you took away all of the dirt and dust and the grunting of physical effort, the clashing of metal against metal.
But pearls are also made to be submissive. Unopinionated. Genial. They are not made for thinking of their own wishes, but for carrying out the wishes of others. You would know better than anyone—
The Renegade is not those things. She is not amiable; she is not meek. You wonder if she ever was. Or if she popped out of the sea just as she is—technically a pearl but much, much more than you would have ever imagined any gem could be. A leader. A fighter. More than pretty—beautiful. Like the silver lining of clouds, or the sun glinting off of the surface of a rippled pond. Brilliant enough that you can hardly take your eyes off of her.
Terrifying.
But it would be fine if she were just terrifying, in that way. In the same way as Bismuth; the kind of terrifying that spurs talk all the way back on Homeworld. The kind of terrifying that places a shatter-on-sight instructive over her head.
Again and again, though, she proves herself to be more. Something more than terrifying. Something unique and all her own.
She stands in front of you now, beaming. Smiling with teeth, the way she only does when you’re away from everyone else, and holding a woven basket full to the brim with purpley-red fruit.
“They’re for you,” she says. She doesn’t need to, of course; she’d pulled you away from the gathering outside by telling you she had something for you, and she hates just about everything organic, anyway; she’d never waste storage space inside of her gem carrying something as seemingly purposeless as fruit unless it was…
“For me?” you say, your mouth dragging a half-step behind your thoughts.
Oh. Something inside of you shrivels—watching the drop of her face—realizing you sound ungrateful. Because you aren’t—you definitely aren’t—it’s just…she’s just—
“You do still like…” she has to find the word; you watch her lips press together, grin erased, as she searches something inside. “Food. Don’t you?”
“Yes!” Too loud, too squeaky high-pitched. Overcorrecting. “Yes, of course, I’m just…surprised.”
And you smile. Which makes her smile: powdery blue—the same color as the sky—rising into her cheeks. Her eyes dart down to look at the ground. Which makes something inside of you…oh.
She holds the basket out to you a little more; you take it. Listen to her chatter as you settle down to sit on the ground together; try to quell the woozy spinning in your head.
“...they’re called plums. And look—” A small knife drawn from her gem; she picks up one of the fruits and does a little fiddling until she’s able to pull it apart into halves, revealing bright pinkish–yellow tinted flesh, dripping; nearly enough to make your mouth water.
“It doesn’t match,” you say, and she nods eagerly. Smiles wider and at you. You got it right, then—and that’s—oh…warmth in your chest; you really should—
“Isn’t that clever?” She laughs; passes you a half then carefully sets the knife aside to pluck out something brown and hard-looking from the center of her piece with nimble fingers. “They have these tough bits—pits. You can’t eat them; I asked. But the rest…the actual fruit. It’s supposed to be very good. Sweet.” A pause. You stare at her hands, held out to you: a pit in one palm, the fruit in the other. “Anyway. I thought you might like them.”
“Of course,” you whisper. “Thank you, Pearl.”
She’s Pearl, when it’s just the two of you. Not the Terrifying Renegade of legends, just…Pearl.
You’re too…too something. You couldn’t possibly eat right now. You take the pieces of plum from Pearl’s hands; set them aside with care.
“Where did you get these?” you ask. She wouldn’t have had time to pluck them all herself.
“One of the humans,” she answers.
“I gathered that.”
You earn another smile. Have to look away—out of the flap of your tent. It’s going all orangey outside. The Sun must be setting. Maybe you can invite Pearl to watch the sunset with you. If you can collect the nerve.
“I made a trade,” she concedes.
“What did you trade?”
“Nothing important.”
“Pearl.”
She shifts around in the dirt; tucks her legs beneath her. She isn’t looking at you when she says:
“A sword.”
A—?!
“Pearl, you didn’t—”
“It was an old one,” she defends. And the blue has spilled out of her cheeks now; most of her face is the same color as those flowers you love so much; the ones growing in the wood behind the campsite. “Extremely old, according to human standards—from several centuries ago, at least. And I’d used it so much that the handle started to feel tender under my grip, which isn’t at all good for fighting; and it was never one of my favorites, to begin with—”
“If it wasn’t one of your favorites, why did you use it so often?”
You think you might have caught her. She freezes for a moment. But then she smiles, small. And shrugs a little—it’s maybe the most casual, human gesture you’ve ever seen her make.
“Preference didn’t play much of a role in my weaponry selection, at the beginning,” she says. Softly—almost like how she starts all of her stories. “I fought with what I could find, and I kept everything. There was no favoritism at all…”
She meets your gaze. You try very, very hard not to look away, but you do eventually—feel your palms; your own face begin to warm.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. You mean it.
And…you think you might be dreaming…for a minute. Experiencing something that isn’t really there—like the humans tell you is possible. When you feel Pearl’s fingertips brushing your own.
You’re grateful, in this moment, that you don’t need air—but you wish your newly-fashioned lungs would work properly anyway.
She doesn’t hold your hand. Only leaves hers just near enough to touch.
But…the want…the need…for—for the closeness; for her—her to… Like a sudden starburst in your chest; almost painful; and…and you can’t—but you need—
“Sorry for what?” she asks.
The wrong question. That is the wrong question to ask you.
Like cold water over your head; metal in your ears; smoke in your eyes; the feeling of being thrown backward…
Without meaning to, you think of the last battle—only your second—and Pearl leaping in front of you—a slice, so quick; her gem falling to land in the dirt like…like it was only a common stone—
Almost like she knew. Even though she couldn’t have.
And…maybe you couldn’t have done anything, but maybe you could have. Reasoned with Yellow beforehand or, at the very least, sat in on a few of her meetings so that you had something useful to share with Pearl or Bismuth. You don’t know how you would have explained your knowing, but whatever would have happened couldn’t have been worse than what actually did—
A full week without Pearl. Which seemed only to translate into a lapse in the schedule for everyone else—not much more than an inconvenience; extra work, leadership duties, solo storytelling nights for Bismuth, maybe, but for you…
It is selfish. It’s selfish and you know it is, to think about it like this, but still.
A week without Pearl, for you, had been much more than a week without a leader; more than a week without a friend. And it was more than just a week without her teasing, her funny little gifts, her warming blush… A week without Pearl was a week without being seen. A week alone. No one else had spent as much time with you; no one else had taken any interest in you at all really—you’re still learning how to be a quartz the right way and you have such a long way to go—and so without her…without Pearl…
It is dramatic. Selfish. But still. It was so awful—you felt that you might as well have been left in ████████.
Maybe you felt that you deserved to be.
Bismuth had been visibly surprised when you gave her Pearl’s gem. She tells you that Pearl never lets herself get hurt.
“She’s too smart for that.” But unsure; turning Pearl over in her palm. Eyes raising to inspect you.
You don’t tell Bismuth it was your fault.
It is a small secret. Miniscule. Comparatively.
“Sorry for what?”
If you were sorry for everything that was your fault, then you’d have to be sorry for everything. For all of it…the fighting…the…war. And you are. You are sorry for all of it. Mostly, except…You’re not sorry about exploring. You’re not sorry about meeting the humans. And you’re not sorry about meeting her. The Renegade.
That complicates things. She complicates things.
You pull your hand away from Pearl’s. Rub your eyes with tight fists to play it off; laugh, forced, and say: “Oh, I don’t know.”
You hate lying to her.
“Well,” Pearl says. Managing to smile, even though you’re being strange. You can tell that she notices because there’s a new little hook in her brow bone. “It’s no matter. Now that I have my spear, I can afford to be a little less miserly with my swords, hm?”
Her spear. A wonder all on its own.
“You’ll tell me how the plums are?” she says, when you don’t respond.
You nod. Pull your knees up to your chest and turn your head back to the tent opening to see that you’ve missed the sunset.