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Rainbow Quartz is, before anything else, a dancer.
Her limbs stretch out, one foot sweeping a wide arc across the packed earth while the other leg bends and then straightens. Her arms reach upwards, grasping at stars – crowd – herself. Her body is unfamiliar – too tall/short slender/full-figured – but it is a space of in-betweens, a perfect recipe of Pearl and Rose Quartz in one dazzling existence.
They’re both pretty dazzling gems, individually. But it’s so much easier to shine when they are both of them.
The humans form a ring around her and Rainbow Quartz laughs with the joy of it all. The patterns are geometric; the movements come on instinct, the natural expression of a body honed to move quickly and precisely. And all around her there is life, thrumming with an energy that is new and all the more exciting for it. Everything on this planet is different – but then, everything in the universe is different to Rainbow Quartz. In all that multitude of space, there is no other being like her.
She is so very happy that she is who she is.
*
Afterwards, Garnet grins, uncharacteristically familiar. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Rainbow Quartz closes all four of her eyes, the sensation of the solid stone at her back and the sounds of merriment beyond all the stronger in the darkness. She sighs, all smiles. “I never thought I was capable of feeling this way. I mean, that… we…?”
Rainbow Quartz pauses, a strange wriggle of uncertainty touching at each end of her gems. Garnet chuckles.
“I’m still getting used to it, too. But it’s getting easier.”
It’s harder to find the words when she’s confused like this. But they’ve overcome tougher challenges before. And this world is theirs to explore however they wish, now.
She’s confused, but she isn’t worried. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Garnet gazes at her – far more intently than she ever would in her normal form. Rainbow Quartz doesn’t mind that at all, either. “You know… perhaps you’ve already thought of this, but just in case you haven’t…” She reaches forward, placing a hand over one of Rainbow Quartz’s. Even something so simple feels excitingly different, and Rainbow Quartz almost misses what Garnet has to say next.
“If you wanted… you could just stay like this.”
The words mean something, but she can’t quite tell how she feels. Rainbow Quartz looks up, straightening.
“You don’t have to unfuse if you don’t want to. This is… something you could be all the time.”
Rainbow Quartz opens her mouth to say something. No, actually: she doesn’t.
She hums instead. Tilts her head. Is she confused again?
“You don’t have to decide right now, of course,” Garnet quickly assures her, and Rainbow Quartz smiles.
“It’s all right. I want to try all sorts of things – I want to experience everything,” she says, with a confidence that is strangely alien. “So, I want to try to be lots of other kinds of people as well!”
She pauses.
“...I think. This really is so delightfully novel…!”
Garnet chuckles and leans away. Is she disappointed not to have found a perma-fusion friend? Rainbow Quartz immediately wants to promise to do it, on impulse, but holds herself back. That sensation doesn’t feel alien at all.
“It’s your choice. Either way, I’m very happy to have met you, Rainbow Quartz.”
Rainbow beams. “I am, too,” she says, and means it.
But that little niggle remains.
(Even if she’d tried to remained fused, it likely wouldn’t have held for long.)
*
When they part in the morning, Pearl tries to bustle away with haste.
“Well then! Those swords aren’t going to polish themselves-”
“Pearl.”
Rose Quartz never looks at her with anything other than kindness.
“Yes, my… my Rose?” Pearl stares at the ground instead. It’s probably appropriate: each of them looking downwards.
“Pearl… when Garnet asked if we wished to remain fused…”
Pearl huffs out a laugh, pulling up at the strands of genuine relief. “Oh, that? Well, it’s true that for a moment or two I may have… thought it over. But I really do agree that this way is the best. We’re two separate gems! I don’t know where I’d even begin to… to stop being Pearl.”
Rose’s eyes linger. Eventually, she nods. “The Pearl I know is very wonderful indeed,” she agrees softly.
“Well, that’s a bit…” Pearl coughs into a hand, hiding her blush. “More to the point – you’re Rose Quartz! And that’s… that’s who you should be. That’s who you chose to be! You should be allowed to just be that way, without some Pearl coming in and clogging everything up…!”
She just looks so… pure. The vivid blue of the Terran sky lights her from behind in a luminescent glow, and her simple white costume floats about her like clouds. The humans wear white, too, and Pearl had thought at first that they styled their robes on Rose intentionally. No: Rose Quartz was simply born to be here, exactly as she is now.
And as she is, her brows furrow. “I didn’t think of it as being ‘clogged up.’”
“No, no – poor choice of words. I just meant that… well. That Rose is already perfect exactly as she is.” Pearl shrugs, searching for the words to add to it – the argument or explanation – but finds nothing more to say. Could anyone doubt such an apparent truth?
Rose’s hands come together. If Pearl didn’t know any better, she might think she seemed nervous.
“Am I…?” she breathes.
Pearl blinks rapidly. “Yes, of course! Rose… you’re – is there anyone kinder or more generous than you, in this galaxy or any other?! Is there anyone more beautiful, more regal, more intelligent and curious and forgiving and -”
“Thank you, Pearl.” Now, Rose looks a little strained. Pearl flushes, abruptly awkward.
“Besides – well. You…” Pearl swallows. “When I said… um, when Rainbow Quartz said that she wanted to experience many different things… that was you, wasn’t it?”
Rose’s mouth twists a little. “Was it only me?”
“No! Of course not. Rose, seeing you explore this world that you chose to save…” Pearl smiles, sincere. “Nothing could make me happier. I want that for you, too.”
Rose is staring into the distance. For the first time, it doesn’t seem to Pearl that she is gazing out over the rolling hills and distant mountains of this landscape with fondness. She’s not certain that Rose it seeing them at all.
“...you truly are so very kind to me, my Pearl,” she murmurs.
All of a sudden, Pearl wants to reach out to her. Rose’s words are so kind, but Pearl wants her to look at her.
When they were fused, she had touched her hands or her shoulders or her chest without even thinking about it. It had felt good. But she no longer knows what Rose wants her to do.
Fusing with Rose… she might as well have tasted the divine. If she thought about it for too long – a simple Pearl like her, sharing space and mind with a gem of Rose Quartz’s calibre – it would horrify her that she’d ever had the gall to try. It had been glory, and it had been contentment – a sudden rightness in herself and her existence that Pearl had never previously known.
But with Rose at her side, smiling and trusting in her, Pearl gets pretty close.
Pearl shouldn’t think lowly of herself for her facet: it would be an offence to all that Rose had fought for to do otherwise. But there is no plausible system by which Rose Quartz is anything less than supreme.
Pearl doesn’t reach for her. She stands and she waits for her commander to speak.
Eventually, Rose turns back. She’s smiling again, the same way Rainbow Quartz had done in the end. Perhaps the same way Pearl is smiling now.
“All right. If you are sure that this is the way you prefer things.”
Pearl snorts, waving a hand. “Rose, really. It’s fine! I had a lot of fun being Rainbow Quartz and I’d definitely like to do it again sometime, but…” She fumbles, searching for the words.
Rose nods. “I understand.” Her eyes are truly as kind as ever.
“Good!” Pearl nods, conclusively, her hands on her hips.
Rose’s lips crinkle a little. “So. You were thinking of polishing the swords…?”
“Oh!” Pearl starts, remembering where she’d just been headed. “Yes, of course! Don’t mind me.”
“If you wished for me to join you-”
Still a bit overwhelmed from all this – Rose Quartz talking to her about herself and looking at her so seriously – Pearl shakes her head, waving a hand. “Oh, Rose. I’m sure you have better things to be doing, hm? I bet those humans are all standing around and waiting to see you – they only got Rainbow last night, after all!”
If it hurts a little to speak that way, Pearl covers it up with her decisive stride.
“Oh… I suppose so. Well, then. Goodbye for now, my Pearl…!”
Pearl spares her only a glance. Even now, tense and sure she’s mucked things up somehow, she longs to spin around and stay a little longer. “Ta-ta for now, My Rose!”
At last, Rose giggles a little. It’s music to Pearl’s ears.
*
Later – even much, much later – she’ll sometimes wonder how Rainbow Quartz might have handled that conversation.
The scenario makes no sense at all, of course. And if she’d need Rainbow to get Rainbow – well, clearly, she doesn’t deserve it.