Work Text:
and this
ruinous god
I swear did not love
but now because
and the reason neither
nothing much
- Sappho, Fragment 67A
I.
Rose watches her brave new world from atop a mountain, eyes bright, arms open wide. Pearl, next to her, is hunched, wispy, shoulders folded in, hugging her knees.
“Did you see those gems who came and fused together? It was so wonderful.” Rose is excited, pacing. She watches all the flowers, flowers she hopes to pick and smell and one day name, flutter in the gentle wind.
“Just once, I think, I’d like to experience this with you.”
Pearl goes as pink as Rose once was.
They share a sumptuous meal like the creatures of Earth do. Rose hand-feeds Pearl some fruit, melons and watermelons and water from a spring, and delights in seeing Pearl suck her fingers at the end of it, looking up at her like as if saying: please, love me, never leave me. It is fucked up that Rose enjoys this, enjoys her eyes going wide and desperate and hungry for her. A little rodent, bushy-tailed, steals a nut from their picnic; Pearl makes to chase after him, but Rose stops her, laughing. “Let him.”
Pearl rises. “I have something to show you.”
Rose follows her, intrigued. Pearl rarely takes the lead, and this compels her immensely. They walk through a wooden trail, untainted by Gem life. Preserved. The smell of wet grass and rich soil is in the air. Rose inhales deeply.
“I set a course last night for this clearing, and look. I wanted to surprise you.” Pearl looks back at her expectantly.
Well, her mission was accomplished: Rose is surprised. Beyond her stretches a flower field, as vast as even her Diamond eyes can see, and the flowers are pink and white and sometimes red.
“I think I like flowers,” she says, and so it is.
“I think they should be named Roses,” Pearl says, and so it is.
The roses appear upon her shield, conjured by magic and desire. Her word is law.
“Come with me,” Rose says, after a silence breathing in the wild aroma, the roses’ sweet perfume. “Do you want to spar?”
There are large strawberries growing on mock vines all around them. Rose whips out her sword and shield. She is strong, stronger than all the others, she knows as she floats, taking her stance. She remembers correcting Pearl’s stance, holding her from behind and feeling her tiny heart beat close to hers. Remembers having to excuse herself afterward, warm in a way she did not know was possible.
Why isn’t Pearl moving? And then she remembers her word should not be law, and isn’t it more delicious, more enticing, that Pearl wants to be here?
“They’re going to come for us soon, you know,” Rose says. “This won’t remain our own little paradise forever.”
Pearl’s spear charges itself at Rose’s flower-covered shield. Rose has whiplash. She was so fast. “You’re getting so good,” Rose praises when she catches up, parrying her next attack with her blade. “At this rate, you and I will single-handedly win this battle when the time comes.”
Pearl drops her spear. She runs towards Rose, ramming her.
“You said it would all end. You said they’d come and fight us. And that we’d win.” Her knuckles press against Rose’s chest, gather in them Rose’s incorporeal dress.
“But they will,” says Rose, pacifying, rubbing Pearl’s short hair. The new style she chose is interesting, angular, such a contrast to Rose’s own round body. She loves seeing her Pearl’s true personality shine through as they lie in wait here, on this paradise, which will run bright with shattered fragments soon, but is all their own and only their own right now. “They will come, and we will win.” Pearl stifles a sob, folded face-first into Rose’s plentiful breasts.
She is so beautiful, Rose thinks. She is so beautiful and does not know it.
“And look at this. Look at this grass. Look at this wild untamed beauty. Look at this, Pearl. I want to remember this forever. I want to remember you forever, as you are now, and as you will be.”
Tears, organic, wet, sodium chloride and water, appear in the corner of Pearl’s eyes and run down her cheeks. Rose reaches out with her finger and swipes it. Licks it. Salty.
They watch the sun set and paint the world orange-red. The meadow glistens. The leaves rustle. Nocturnal animals must be stirring, beginning to wake.
“I want to stay with you forever,” Pearl says.
“I will,” says Rose. “We will. I promise.”
II.
She was so certain when she said that, the girl, the woman, the Gem from her picture. One evening now that Steven, that organic living form that once was Rose but is not anymore in a way she cannot comprehend, is bigger and can spend more time left alone, outside with Greg, Pearl takes the picture out and stares.
The picture is framed. It is of Rose Quartz, savior of all Earth, who before that was Pink Diamond, destroyer of it. The contradictions she contained were multitude; the way she was both incredibly caring and incredibly flippant, leaving behind her an incomprehensible world for Pearl to figure out. Alone.
Pearl traces the outline of her curvaceous body, of her unbelieving smile. This picture is a copy of the larger portrait which hangs by the stairs, but this one is small and hers alone. She thinks of Rose.
The poetic form of her body and how she could make her sing. She was so voluptuous, and yet airy and light, and broken not at all. The way she supposedly shattered; the scrutiny that came afterward. The way Rose learned to love and then taught it to her, spinning her around, and she felt she was in heaven. Freedom, fusion, her attention.
But she still questions. Did Rose truly love her? Did she come to see her as a partner, an equal, the way that Ruby and Sapphire were, or was she always her little plaything? Well-treated, yes, better than all the others; her life was enviable back in Homeworld. A Pearl made to serve a Diamond! Pink Diamond’s special Pearl! But she was just a Pearl, after all, a servant. And then here on Earth, this red-rock planet, she was chosen by her. Chosen specifically by her. Spent eons at her side or defending her. And then one day she met a human man she threw it all away for, that she broke her promise for.
Pearl threw herself in front of danger, recklessly, over and over. For her. Of course she couldn’t let Pink Diamond’s secret get out. Still can’t. But if she’s honest it’s not the secret who kept her violating her own bodily integrity and holographic form, letting herself be poofed again and again, disappearing, incorporeal, risking shattering. It was something else, something stranger and ancient inside her. Something she can describe as devotion to others. She sees it here how humans have something like churches, where they worship gods they’ve never seen. But this feeling is stranger than that. She wouldn’t call it this but maybe humans would call it love.
“Pearl,” a raspy voice says. She looks up.
Amethyst comes to sit next to her, at the foot of the bed. “Whatcha doin’?” she asks, casually.
“Remembering,” says Pearl.
She doesn’t need to say anything. Amethyst’s eyes follow the angle of her own gaze.
“If she lied to my face that she loved me, I would like that very much,” Pearl says, not looking up. Amethyst puts an arm around her. She doesn’t lean into her, but doesn’t push her away, either. “I would have liked it, at least.”
Amethyst, uncharacteristically, says nothing. Sometimes Pearl thinks that because she was born on Earth she is simply better at telling what Gems and people on this planet need, and the thought makes her feel even more distant, even more unusual, even more foreign.
The silence is broken by a whirlwind downstairs. A noise. A child’s voice, high-pitched, from the kitchen: “Garnet! Amethyst! Pearllllllll!!!! I missed you! Come have Cookie Cats with me!”
Amethyst jumps up, giving Pearl one last look. “Sure, bud! I’m comin’!”
And at the crux of devotion and love lies this: a human child, who inadvertently took Rose from her, needy and inconvenient and impatient.
Rose broke her promise first. I want to stay with you forever.
But Pearl will do right by her, because that’s what Pearl does. Not because she was built to. More because she feels these strange and ancient feelings, given to her by the stars or God or the source of all living matter or whatever; maybe it’s a mystery; maybe it doesn’t matter. The fact is that she will do what she must to keep him alive, this boy who is not Rose and seems so fragile, and she will forgive her, and one day when he comes of age he will know who his mother is but not yet. Not yet. Let Pearl have her, alone, even if only in her memories, just a little while longer. Let Pearl hold on.