Work Text:
She thought that she had seen it all.
She has seen her people starve to death when she was Jelena, people’s reaction to losing everything they own in order to collect their debt as part of her job description.
She is but a person that could eliminate an entire civilization without feeling anything if she was asked too by the IPC.
But what would happen tonight, would be something that she wouldn’t have never thought she would see on an ordinary Friday night.
Well, I guess it wasn’t very ordinary in the first place.
And it all started with a simple text message from her superior, Diamond.
. . .
“…Why out of all the Stone hearts, I was required to do this with you?”
“Ooo, watch it. That burns y’know?”
Face palming, she tries not to be pricked by the many plethora of plants that surround the both of them. Topaz swats her hand disgustingly from all the flies that try to stick onto her body, as her co-worker chuckles at her.
“I think that fly really likes you.”
She tries to ignore both of the annoying pests, but unfortunately the human counterpart is harder to ignore.
“I really don’t understand why Diamond wanted you to help me with this.”
“Maybe it’s because my work ethic perfectly synergies with yours.”
“I doubt that Aventurine.”
She has a right to think of that too, considering the Mighty Aventurine’s work ethic is all about the risk and rewards that come from it. It rivals her straight forward and no nonsense virtue that she has placed in her brain since joining the IPC. To her, balancing the books is very critical, with no permanent enemies during conflict. But to him, a great treasure must be at the horizon, with a risk that has him winning no matter what has to be done. Their principles are completely opposite to one another on a spectrum of getting work done.
The cryptic man, one with danger signs wherever you stare, smiles with his signature grin, a face revealing motive’s of teasing and bothering her to death’s end.
“Who knows, maybe a risk today will help you uncover something you never even imagined digging up.”
“Keep walking please, or else I’m going to fall in this mud…”
Topaz can admit to herself that she already almost tripped 7 times just trying to trek through the tarry mud, having Aventurine in front of her was not a good idea. If she had any idea of how slow he would be walking, she would’ve stayed up front.
Annoyed at his antics, she quickly props her head up to see the blazing sun that shines almost as bright as her gem stone. A signature of her place in the IPC. A stone that signifies her current identity.
If it was any brighter, she might’ve not noticed Aventurines blonde hair that’s right next to her face.
Taking a step back, Now taking a proper look at her colleague, she can definitely notice how extravagant his outfit is. It really matches his bright and sarcastic personality. She sighs, feeling tired of everything that associates with the man in front of her.
It’s not even that she hates him, surprisingly, she actually doesn’t. When all is said and done, they talk to each other pretty fine, it's just that both personalities don’t exactly clash with each other. Nothing special ever appeared from them talking when they are alone.
But it definitely doesn’t stop him from teasing her 24/7. If he had a chance to roast her to the ground. He definitely would without hesitation. And that’s what really gets her riled up with him.
As both of them wander to some sort of safe ground for them to camp out, they search and make a stretch of a grass their home ground for tonight. Arranging for tomorrow’s big meeting with a city near them. Diamond chose the two of them to act as delegates for a significant meeting, representing as the IPC, the Interastral Peace Corporation. Although she wasn’t very excited about it. She wasn’t even aloud to bring Numby with her.
Both laying their traveling equipment to the ground, they set up each of their respective tents, Topaz preparing a hearty dinner featuring Rice, Chicken, and whatever they had in their bags.
Using the limited firewood and kindling that they found on the ground near them in arms reach, Aventurine sets up a fire, keeping the both of them toasty during this chilly summer night here. He grabs a giant fallen tree log and places it near the wildfire, creating a seat to sit down for the both of them to eat. As Topaz hands him his bowl, they both sit on the single log together.
As they both eat their separate bowls, silence falls between them, an uneasy feeling falls between the 2 of them as they awkwardly eat. Topaz finishes her meal first, noticing how timid the air between them is right now. Knowing that she can’t dwell on their situation, she pulls out a historic record out of her bag of this planet they are on, reading all the interesting facts.
Flipping through the record, Aventurine can hear the sounds of paper slapping with one another, deciding to join in on whatever she’s doing.
“What are you reading?”
Hearing his voice, she responds to his question.
“Reading a record on this planet, I haven’t been here before, so I want to be aware of all the facts and dangers that reside here.”
“Are you sure this place is dangerous? I haven’t seen a single critter trying to slaughter us still.”
“I would hold your horses, there are plenty of dangerous creatures that are stated in this.”
She flips to a random page, labeling “DUNMER”
Intrigued by the name of this brute, he scoots a bit closer to Topaz. Moving his head closer to her so he can also read the record, his bowl of food still occupying both of their hands.
Although the sudden movement of Aventurine getting closer to her makes her heart jump a little for some reason, she ignores it and reads the description for him as he looks.
“Dunmer, a creature with magical power that is overwhelming to even the most adept forces. They are commonly shown as elf-ish figures. If you see them charging a blinding yellow attack, run immediately. Its attack can cleanly injure anyone seriously. This creature has records of even attacking through shields and collecting small things.”
“Oh that’s not lovely, my shields do absolutely nothing to it, how unfortunate.”
Finishing his bowl, he replaces it on the ground between them before grabbing his handkerchief in his pocket, wiping any traces of him eating rice and chicken.
Content, he continues to reply to that monster description.
“It does sound faux though, there is no way this world has a creature that is able to beat the both of us without breaking a sweat. I don’t think we should be very worried about it.”
Topaz sighs, before closing the record and dropping it back in her bag.
“Well, I don’t want to take any chances. I want to make my stay here an uneventful one.”
“Relax, It’s not like we are going to find one anyways, I kept reading the excerpt after u stopped reading it. It says “rare” on it, even if it did exist. I would doubt we would find one.”
“…it scares me sometimes how you're never concerned about anything.”
Topaz’s mood drops from Aventurines nonchalant expression of concern, this dude really isn’t worried for anything. I guess that’s a good thing, knowing that means he sees himself winning any scenario.
Feeling the air get a bit frigid, she notices that the fire is getting quieter and colder, signaling it’s end.
“I'm going to get more kindling for the fire so it will last longer. I’ll be right back.”
Standing up to prepare a small trip for some fuel for the dying fire, she spots that Aventurine also stood up, leaving his dirty dishes on the foldable table they brought.
“Let me come with you, we can make this go significantly faster with the two of us going”
“It’s really not needed, I’m only getting a little bit. Plus I can see how close you are from knocking yourself out on the floor.”
But Aventurine won’t take no for an answer, and he persists in order for an answer he desires.
“I’m not that tired, I’m just a little weary from the walk. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen with me coming along with you?”
She huffs in annoyance from his perseverance of wanting to go, before giving up and sighing.
“Fine, let's go. I want to make this quick so I can sleep earlier.”
Feeling satisfied with her answer, he smirks with a goofy smile.
“Trust me, you won’t regret it.”
*Hopefully, I won’t.* she thinks.
Topaz can only hold so much of Aventurine’s flamboyant personality before she gets visibly annoyed, and she’s almost at her limit at this point.
Aventurine looks at his bag before joining Topaz, looking at his belongings in there.
“Do any of us want to take our bags with us?”
“It’s not going to be needed hopefully, it's just hunting for kindling.”
. . .
Spotting around in the crowded forest around them, They both scan around for any sort of small sticks that can be used for their wildfire. Unfortunately, it looks like the night before decided that it wanted a rainstorm. A lot of the usable sticks and stones were all wet, which they both agree is not really ideal for a fire.
Both feeling visibly annoyed with their findings after an hour, Topaz raises her arm up to look at the time.
*11:04 PM*
They should be really going to bed soon in about an hour anyways. They both concur with one another that if they don’t find anything in about 30 minutes, that they should just head back and go to bed.
Continuing to look, they inspect the floor, the trees, or anything that could be a home to some leftover kindling. Apart from a few nice round and sharp stones, their searching has come empty handed.
Topaz feeling a bit dejected from their findings, she starts to head back to their camp.
“Well, it’s not the biggest deal anyways, lets just head back and-“
But she could not complete her sentence over the sudden pique of Aventurine’s voice.
“Wait! Over there, look!”
“...Huh?”
Quickly catching up with her co-worker, they both peek behind a thicket of bushes to act as some sort of camouflage. Noticing a rather short figure sleeping near what looks like a bunch of small items. Its head is covered by a dark robe that shelters its entire body.
“Topaz look, they have a nice stack of small branches near them”
“Are you sure we should be going towards it? I don’t think it looks very friendly.”
“Oh don’t worry, I know a gamble that I can win when I see one. I'm just going to quietly sneak, take a few, then come back.”
Although Topaz has a faint feeling of skepticism, she lets Aventurine carry on with his plan. After all, he is P45, a rank higher than her. He probably knows what he’s doing.
Slowly exiting the thicket, he carefully steps with his legs to the stack of small kindling. He makes sure he doesn’t accidentally wake the person up. Successfully picking up a few sticks, he whispers quietly.
“See? I told you friend, we would be fine.”
Topaz gives him a look, but puts her hands up in defeat, he was right after all.
But unfortunately, luck was not on either of their sides, as Aventurine quietly walks back, he gets hit with a sudden wave of fatigue from their long walk earlier today, causing him to slip backwards, dropping all the kindling. He lands on one singular branch, creating a small *Crack!* sound.
The noise in the air was so quiet you could hear the wind rustling in their direction. Both unable to respond to the figure suddenly waking up, now staring at the both of them.
And unfortunately, it probably didn’t look very happy, because only one word was said between the 2 of the Ten Stone Hearts after it woke up.
“Run!”
Topaz without a second thought grabs Aventurine’s arm and lifts him up, dragging him with her as they run as fast as they could across the dense forest. The moon followed them as they ran for their lives as the mysterious person kept up with their pace, ready to hunt the both of them down. Topaz wishes that she could take a proper look at the moon, because it does look very beautiful.
She didn’t think they were friendly, but she certainly wasn’t expecting it to chase them down like they were wild meat.
Letting go of his hand, she quickly yells out to her companion to make some sort of effort.
“Start Maneuvering! I don’t think it can track the both of us down at once!”
“Alright.”
Aventurine puts on a serious face, his cryptic background taking over the stage, tugging on his watch before smirking. He throws a couple of poker coins up in the air as he slides underneath a giant tree root, the coins transforming to 2 shields for him and Topaz
“Take this just in case, you never know what you need.”
Knowing that it’s not really the time for them to bicker, she takes his gift before running to a different direction than him. She is very aware that the figure is following her instead of him, so she hopes to trick it in some way.
Leaping over certain tall objects, she quickly hides behind a thick tree, before peeking her head out and aiming her gun.
Unluckily though, she didn’t realize until it was too late that it already was behind her, quickly turning around and noticing a rather large beam of light ready to hit her.
But as she squints her eyes ready for the ray’s damage, nothing happens.
Confusingly, she opens her eyes to see a coin on the floor. And then another coin hitting the enemy chasing her.
Noticing the black and green aesthetic on the coin, she notices a smirking Aventurine running past them, throwing another coin, now aggravating the creature, as it now follows him.
Regardless that he saved her, only one thing pops up in her mind.
*What a show off.*
As he continues to distract the figure, Topaz finally manages to shoot a few shots with her gun.
Nothing. It doesn’t even flinch
Topaz grows shock, as she realizes that it’s not taking visible damage, gritting her teeth realizing they got a huge problem
“Aventurine! It doesn’t take damage, we gotta get out of here now!”
Hearing her cries, he quickly joins back up with her as they both sprint to shake it off. Both unsure on what to do in this situation.
After a very overdue extended run of them trying to derail it off, they both slowdown in fatigue. Turning around to see that it still is behind them, Topaz groans in defeat.
“How did it still manage to keep up with us…”
She will say though, this creature is a new one she has seen. It was near a small collection of things, and managed to keep with their place even though both her and Aventurine are tough opponents.
Coincidentally, it does very much match the description of something she has read in a historical record.
Collecting…very adept…
…
*oh no.*
Looking up at the figure, she notices how it seems to look like it's charging something yellow. The beam shining very bright at the 2 of them.
And then she sees it.
Right underneath the cloaked robe that it was wearing.
*Elf Ears*
It’s the Dunmer.
Topaz quickly realizes what they are up against. And judging by the gritting of Aventurine’s teeth, I think he knows what is too.
But between the 2 of them, one thing is different.
He’s staying in place distracted, and she’s already running out to push him out of the way of the blast.
And to be honest, she has no idea why. It might’ve been because he was not moving, or that she’s just looking out for a fellow colleague.
But much to her own confusion, her heart cries out more than her brain does. Her body having a mind of its own.
“Watch out! Aventurine!”
Staring at what may be the very last thing she sees, she notices an Aventurine. Not an Aventurine she knows, not a sarcastic one, or a smirking one, or a cryptic and mysterious one she’s known to see.
But, an anxious one, one that has the word “jumbled” all over his face
“...Topaz!?”
And then, *blank*.
. . .
Fate, a word she’s all too familiar now. A destiny that every human has to see to its end.
Perhaps fate is telling her that she must end her’s early.
Which, not going to lie, it pisses her off. She doesn’t like fate all too much. She just wants to fulfill her life.
But I guess being a basically forced member of the IPC by childhood doesn’t really give her very much fulfillment anyways.
By a miracle, I guess she’s not dead.
Feeling a sort of stiff background behind her, she slowly opens her eyes to reveal distortion in her vision, suddenly feeling dizzy with a wave of blood rushing to her head.
Or, she thought it was blood rushing up to head. Slowly raising a hand up, she feels a sticky and warm sensation on her face.
*Ah. A familiar feeling she has grown accustomed to for a while now.*
She diagnosed herself that she’s probably bleeding out of her head.
Suddenly looking down, she sees a gruesome feast of wounds that appeared out of her body. Luckily, most of them don’t look too serious, but she should definitely get them checked out by tomorrow by someone that knows what they're doing. That left hip definitely looks urgent though, it looks like a giant bear clawed at it.
Looking around, she can spot a few things.
She notices that she’s probably resting on a tree right now. The blast probably propelled her backwards and into the tree guessing from the mark that she left on it.
She can also notice that the Dunmer is gone, which is probably a good thing. That thing was crazy tough.
And another thing, for some reason she sees a tall ish figure with a black and green color scheme right in front of her face.
…
“…Aven…turine?”
Her vision still hasn’t yet to focus and clear yet, but she can make out Aventurine looking right at her.
But that’s not an Aventurine she knows. Because this one looks very worried, and cluttered. His blond hair looked all messy, and his clothes filled with Muck from their encounter with the Dunmer.
“Topaz! Are you okay?!”
The stress in his pitch surprises her, what happened to the Aventurine that used to sound very sarcastic whenever she bickered with him?
She’s confused, but I don’t think her mind is in the right zen right now to even think, rapidly noticing that a ringing in her ears has arrived with a heartfelt welcome.
Topaz tries to get up to see how bad everything hurts, quickly feeling a sharp sense of pain within her left hip, immediately falling, and crashing onto the forest floor, much to Aventurine's fear in his face.
“Hey…Easy there, sit down…”
Topaz can’t really tell a lot of things right now, but she can tell one thing that’s for sure.
Aventurine is definitely muttering curse words under his breath.
And he has a right to be doing that, he’s just… so confused.
Never in his life as a slaved member of the IPC, has someone shown extreme amounts of kindness and selfless actions towards him. It takes so much effort just for him to just wake up in the morning.
Yet Topaz manages to just push him away from an almost death killing blow without a second thought.
And he feels so guilty for it.
Knowing that Topaz’s head and hip injury needs at least some sort of cast, he rips off the 2 sleeves off his shirts before gently and carefully wrapping each sleeve respectively to both of those wounds.
He knows that they should be cleaned up and have a clean bandage, but he unfortunately left his first - aid in his bag that’s currently at camp. So this will just have to be her cast for now.
Regardless, Aventurine looks at Topaz with the most sincere sadness nobody has ever seen. It was a sight that no one ever gets to see. A side of him that shouldn’t exist.
“…This is all my fault, I’m actually so sorry…”
Topaz feels so dumbfounded seeing this behavior come from him. She just doesn’t know what to say.
As Aventurine finishes each temporary cast, he looks down, not wanting to see Topaz’s face. Feeling so guilty that a glimpse of her would send him down a drain of infinite guilt.
But it doesn’t stop him from hating himself once more.
“I’m sorry…I should’ve not tried to grab the kindling that the Dunmer was keeping for itself.”
…
“I should’ve just stayed behind you….and not go off on my own.”
…
“…I should’ve just stayed at the camp and waited for you to return.”
…
“Im…Im sorry.”
He halts on speaking anymore, sentencing himself to sitting in silence with a wounded Topaz who is still trying to collect her thoughts.
Honestly though…if it was any other moment where she was hanging out with him, She would’ve very much appreciated Aventurine being quiet for once in his life.
But this deafening silence makes her mad.
I think she has had enough time to compose her thoughts.
“Hey…Can you please stop?”
Aventurine ears perked up a bit, before slowly raising his head up, confused on what she meant.
“…what do you mean stop…? Stop with what…”
“This guilty persona you have right now…it's really stupid. You look like a lost puppy. Stop.”
She sits herself up a little bit more, feeling his 2 makeshift bandages hold In place as she moves around. He really wrapped her wounds well, and with care.
“Look. I’m only going to say this once… because I feel like hot garbage right now…”
She takes a deep breath, trying to formulate her thoughts, her true ones.
“…I saved you for 2 reasons. One…was because you were standing there like an idiot…”
Aventurine doesn’t even dare to respond back to that, she definitely wasn’t wrong about that.
“And two…because I… couldn’t stand to see you hurt…okay?”
After processing what she just said, he just looks at her in a silent shock, his Sigonian eyes staring at her with much emotion.
He still stays in silence, not knowing what to say.
She knows she has no control on what Aventurine does with his life, but she hopes with her words, he can stop acting so gloomy.
Waiting about 10 minutes in silence with him, Topaz slowly gets up, using the tree as a support. Ignoring what Aventurine said about taking time to feel better.
As she takes a step forward, she immediately can feel a rush of dizziness overwhelming her, slowly wobbling, unfortunately she starts to tip over, now wishing that she listened to what he told her to do.
But this time, someone was here to catch her.
And it was no one other than the Mighty Aventurine.
Without a second thought, he quickly stands and catches her before she starts to fall. Carefully placing an arm around his neck to steady her.
“Hey, I told you to take it easy now…”
Topaz looks at him, before finally seeing his expression, a serene face of calmness and acceptance, his smile being faint, but genuine.
And for some reason, that smile causes her to faintly smile back.
“Right…sorry. I should’ve listened to you…”
“I'm glad you admitted that.”
They both get a glint of shine in their eyes, looking up to see the source of a glistening moon towering the both of them. Now looking at it in it's proper form, Topaz can see really how wonderful it is.
“…The moon sure is nice isn’t it”
Aventurine looks at her, before replying
“…yeah, it really does.”
After the both of them look at it for a good while, Aventurine notices that Topaz is starting to cough heavily, probably due to the injuries she sustained.
“I should get you properly treated before tomorrow, let's go back to camp.”
“…that would be nice…”
As they both walk together, a silence dwells over them.
But it's not an awkward silence anymore.
No, it's one of comfort. A silence that just lets them take comfort in just being here with one another.
And even if this doesn’t last forever, Topaz knows one thing for sure.
Even though they came out empty handed for kindling, she feels warm now for a completely different reason.